


Come in from the Cold

by spacestationtrustfund



Series: come in from the cold [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: ...but with a twist!, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Body Horror, Bureaucracy, Depression, Find Bucky, Grief/Mourning, Identity Porn, M/M, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-consensual scientific experimentation, Politics, Road Trip of Vengeance, Steve Rogers vs. the 21st Century
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-06-26 08:46:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 56,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19764685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacestationtrustfund/pseuds/spacestationtrustfund
Summary: The first time Steve had opened the Winter Soldier file, he’d been standing over an empty grave. It had been fitting, somehow—one undead soldier in front of him, another in his hands.Picks up after TWS; it’s open season on canon compliance from there.





	1. The persistence of memorabilia

**Author's Note:**

> [shows up to CAP2 fandom five years late with an iced coffee] So... what up...
> 
> This is [Mia](https://feuilletoniste.tumblr.com)'s fault for providing an enthusiastic echo chamber while I was writing this bitch. She double-checked that the English was American enough, put up with my historical nitpicking and pedantry, and plied me with cool political factoids. Insert whatever innuendo you want to go here.
> 
> ANYWAY this is absolutely named after Joni Mitchell but also the Le Carré novel because I am predictable.

* * *

**FROM: Jen**

so... wanna flip a coin on which major news outlet tries its hand at nazi apologism first?

**FROM: Matt**

Not really. ):

* * *

** TOP TRENDING WORLDWIDE: **

  1. [#WhoIsBlackWidow](https://twitter.com/hashtag/WhoIsBlackWidow)
  2. [#SHIELDgate](https://twitter.com/hashtag/SHIELDgate)
  3. [#HYDRALeaks](https://twitter.com/hashtag/HYDRALeaks)
  4. [#CaptainAmerica ⍟](https://twitter.com/hashtag/CaptainAmerica)
  5. [#HYDRAfiles](https://twitter.com/hashtag/HYDRACap)



* * *

When it comes to national icons, the American public would be hard-pressed to name one more enduring and epochally American in his legacy than Steve Rogers, the face behind the legend of Captain America. The name itself conjures up an image of home-baked apple pie, Washington’s cherry tree, the stars and stripes waving lazily on a white-painted porch, and the quintessential pyramid’s eye on the dollar bill. The USO war effort—of which Rogers played a crucial part in his early days, selling war bonds and encouraging enlistment among men of legal age—ensured that his legacy would be a timely one, full of traditionally patriotic images such as soldiers fighting shoulder to shoulder, red-blooded young men taking down German Wehrmacht, or even socking Adolf Hitler square in the kisser, as displayed proudly on the cover of _Captain America #1_ , the first in a long line of comics detailing the heroic—and often hyperbolized—adventures of Rogers and his anachronistically christened “Howling Commandos.”

The story of Captain America is one that Baby Boomers latched on to as a paradigm of the American ideal: the young orphan struggling to make ends meet, fervently doing his part to help the war effort, and ultimately pulling himself up by his own bootstraps to volunteer for Project Rebirth, emerging fully fledged as the reified _übermensch_. The parallel can be drawn to the story of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, wherein Dr. Abraham Erskine plays the role of the scientist creating new life from old pieces—assuming, of course, that Dr. Frankenstein was gunned down by Nazi spies, leaving his “monster” to don the garb of a USO showgirl and perform to sell war bonds intended to put “a bullet in the barrel of your best guy’s gun,” instead of hiding in crevices and learning to read by proxy. The figurative lightning strike that transmogrified Rogers into Captain America, however, was all too real.

With a small handful of dedicated soldiers serving at his right hand, the tactical genius and SHIELD co-founder Margaret “Peggy” Carter as his “best girl,” and an arsenal of highly efficient weaponry at his disposal, Captain America was, to all appearances, the perfect American soldier. Slapped on posters alongside the likes of Uncle Sam and Rosie the Riveter, Captain America solemnly spurred ordinary citizens to support the war effort through war bonds, scrap metal drives, sock-darning at home, and even Victory Gardens—something Rogers himself, having grown up in central Brooklyn, would likely never have encountered. The world, swept up in the excitement of the apotheosized hero, forgot about the man behind the mask: before he was Captain America, he was Steve Rogers, nothing more than “just a kid from Brooklyn.”

Navrátilová, Eliška. _The Persistence of Memorabilia: The Enduring Legacy of Captain America_. Oxford University Press: OUP, 1997. ( _Introduction: Legacies_ , pp. 7-23)

* * *

Natasha entered the room without knocking, tossing something small and dull-metal at him that Steve only barely caught, reflexes still slow, hampered by the awkward position he was in, resting on his side. “Good news or bad news first?” she said, setting one hand on her hip.

Steve glanced down at the thumb drive, and closed his hand around it protectively. At least it wasn't bubblegum this time. “Surprise me,” he said.

Natasha sat down at the foot of the bed, carefully avoiding the trailing IVs and BP monitors. “Well, little Miss President Carter says the CIA’s recon squads haven’t managed to find our old roommate yet. But then again, _he_ hasn’t found _them_ , either.”

“Them?”

That earned him a flippant hand wave. “They don’t pay me; I don’t work for them. I’ve technically never worked for SHIELD as anything but a private contractor, employed through Isaiah and Maria. A mercenary, if you want to be technical about it, but that’s hardly the point, Cap.”

"What _is_ the point, then?"

Natasha linked her fingers together and shoved both hands between her knees. “There’s a lot of shit going down on Capitol Hill at the moment that I don’t really want to be involved in any more than Maria tells me I have to or she’ll take away my M67 privileges for a whole month.”

“Yeah, I’m real sure you’d listen to her,” Steve said. “Have you talked to Sam?”

“He came over to visit when I was staying with Clint for a few days,” she said, so casually, and something inside his chest dropped into empty space at her words. “Brought flowers for the roof-top gardens. We had a nice little barbecue. Very homey. Clint took a couple pictures that he wanted me to show you, but I’ll have them printed out. Quality’s better that way.”

“I bet,” Steve said.

Photographs: evidence, a lead of some sort. Something they wouldn't be able to talk about, not where anyone could be listening—

Steve said, “Listen, Natasha, have you heard from Ni—”

Natasha talked over him like he didn’t even say anything, bright and bubbly. “I think you’d love the roof gardens, actually. They’re Clint’s baby, and he hasn’t managed to fuck it up too badly yet, even. Started when he was in a wheelchair for a while after some local mob entanglement that got a bit too heated for some of the tenants in his building.”

“He owns a building,” Steve said.

“He owns an apartment complex in Bed-Stuy,” said Natasha, as though this were normal, “and he grows flowers on the roof. You ever grow one of those Victory Gardens, back in the day? Little rows of silver bells and cockleshells?”

Steve stared at her. “I—you know I—”

“Ever plant milkweed? Clint managed to grow some in a couple pots on the roof of his apartment complex. Well, it was Kate mostly. You’ll meet her later, probably. Milkweed attracts butterflies like nothing else. Monarchs especially.”

“I... don’t think I ever grew milkweed,” Steve said.

He didn't have the foggiest idea what milkweed looks like. Natasha just smiled, like she was enjoying the little game.

Steve said, “Would it attract a lot of... butterflies?”

Natasha shrugged. “More than enough to fill up the garden. Leave the window open and they’ll get in the house; sit down outside, they’ll land on you.”

“Okay,” Steve said, slowly. “Maybe... maybe when I get out, we could... go look at a butterfly garden.”

Her smile was almost certainly fake, too wide and too bright for three days after the end of the world, but it was practiced enough to fool the butterflies hidden on—the ceiling, the BP monitor, the back of the closed hospital door, he didn't know where, or how, or who planted them.

“We could bring Wilson along, too,” Natasha suggested. She kissed his forehead briefly before standing up and pushing her shoulders back. “He knows a lot about things with wings.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. He tried not to glare at her—she was, after all, offering to do him a favor. “Yeah, he’d probably like that. I’ll ask him.”

“Don’t worry about it, baby doll, I can handle a single phone call. Besides, you need to rest up or they’ll never let you out of here.”

Steve frowned for real at that. “I’ll be out of here in a day or two, Nat.”

“Ooh, that’s _got_ to hurt,” Natasha pouted. “What did Nurse Sayegh tell you, three weeks? A month? Even you can’t heal from a GSW overnight. Far be it from me to criticize personal technique where this particular... character is concerned—”

“You gotta know I don’t believe you.”

“—but wearing the flashy uniform was a ballsy move, Cap. I’m just sorry I didn’t get to be in the room when they literally stitched your ass back together.”

“It was my _thigh_ ,” Steve protested, wincing, “and I wanted the uniform because—”

Natasha gave the area in question a pointed, lingering look. “Speedos are off the table, then? Remind me not to take you to a nude beach on our next couple’s vacay. How about, ooh, we could go catch a game... I hear the Yankees are playing soon—”

Steve leveled her with a disappointed glare. It didn't work as well on someone who wasn't a twelve-year-old Captain America fan, or a vaudeville caricature of Adolf Hitler, but he gave it his best shot anyway. Straight out of the old films. _Captain America & His Howling __Commandos_ , or something like that. But they hadn’t been Howling Commandos, or Commandos of any sort; they’d been the 107th Tactical Team—the Invaders, when Morita was waxing drunken poetic, or a group of fucking suicidal idiots led by a madman in tights with a bouncing betty instead of a fucking brain, when Dugan was.

“Anyway,” Natasha continued, “I know why you wore the uniform, and I’m still saying it was a stupid move. Think about it, Rogers. Did he ever think of you as Captain America, or did he always see you as _Steve?_ ”

Steve opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Natasha waited, smug. Steve said, “I—”

“You,” Natasha agreed. “I’m willing to help you with your plan to track down your rowdy former house guest, but we’re going to have to set some ground rules. No self-sacrificing bullshit, or I pull the plug. Baby and the bathwater. No second chances, so zip it.”

“Natasha...”

" _Zip it._ "

Steve zipped it.

“For now,” Natasha continued, “you’re going to stay here, for at least three days, and do your homework. I’m counting on the doc to fix you up.”

Steve narrowed his eyes at her. “The serum increased my healing factor as well as my metabolism. I don’t think the doctors will be able to do anything I couldn’t do myself, at Sam’s place.”

“Did I say that? No. No, I think you need to stay here. And if you’re worried about the _doc_ not being able to get you ready, well—oh, I’m sure they’ll whip you into capital shape,” she said, then threw him a wink, and slipped out the door.

* * *

The thumb drive contained a single folder—not encrypted—which in its turn contained a single file. Someone with a sense of humor, presumably Natasha, had titled it _entomology.docx_.

"Damn it, Natasha," Steve said, under his breath.

It was, of course, pointless to be uncomfortable plugging the drive into the computer he had with him at the hospital, not in the wake of the document leak, but Steve still hesitated.

The laptop was a slim, sleek silver thing with Stark tech written all over it. After the flummoxing conversation with Natasha, Steve wasn't any more certain what in the room was bugged, and to what degree.

He still didn't trust Stark, either; Tony reminded him of the more tenacious vices Howard had displayed. They had the same quick, easy grin that shows half-teeth, like they knew something you don’t, and wanted to make it very clear how much they were enjoying that knowledge.

Steve closed his eyes.

Two seconds, he thought. He would allow himself two seconds to miss Howard. Sometimes, if he wasn't paying attention, he’d catch a glimpse of Tony out of the corner of his eye and be thrown violently back into 1943. But no: Tony was decades older than Howard ever was, back then.

It was unnerving, still, the expectation of sound—whirring gears, mechanical noises as the keys clicked into place. The laptop felt alien under his hands, quiet and mocking. He’d learned to type on Mr. O’Leary’s shabby old typewriter, doing book keeping for the store with his fingers flushed pink and white with the cold, blowing on the ribbon every other minute to keep the ink from freezing solid. Computers always reminded him of the first few months, locked away in a secluded cabin that everyone swore wasn’t a prison, pacing back and forth and tracing the outline of fist-prints on the metal wall, too large to be purely human.

It hadn’t settled once he’d been released, either. Stuck amidst the blue-white and whirling rapidity of the future, spun every which way by Fury’s firm and controlling marionette strings, still reeling in the loss of over a half a century— (but barely two weeks, his mind would whisper traitorously, eighteen days since Zola and the zip line and the Schnellzug in the Brenner Pass, eighteen days since...)

But Natasha had been there.

Agent Romanoff had arranged a place to sleep in a Brooklyn tenement owned by someone she said she knew, when Steve had blanched at the exorbitant prices of the Heights, an area that had always been stuffed to the brim with the poor Irish immigrants and Jewish families and migrant groups and queers. Natasha had fielded the phone calls—and the phone itself, an impossible little flat thing that sat easily in the palm of his hand—that came streaming in from Stark and Fury and Hill and Ross and SHIELD and endless reporters and news sources and government agencies all wanting to know the details of him.

And she had taken him shopping. Clothes, toiletries, food, dishes.

Steve remembered freezing in his tracks the first time he'd walked into a grocery store.

Faced with the seemingly endless aisles of food, more than he’d ever seen in his life—enough to feed the whole borough and have some left over for the soup kitchens and dock workers; enough to feed his whole regiment, even Morita’s bottomless stomach; enough to trade or sell for the medicine his Ma needed when she got ill, when she started coughing in a way she couldn’t hide—he’d learned how to hide his sickness from her example, learned how to put on a brave face and suck it up; enough to—

And then Natasha’s steady grip in his wrist, linking her small fingers with his. Steve hunched his shoulders, feeling a foot shorter and a hundred pounds lighter again, and followed her blindly into the painfully bright lights of the building.

Steve still hesitated for a fraction of a second at automatic doors. The fact that they could detect his presence made his skin crawl like there were insects underneath it.

Three days, then. Three days in the hospital to ensure his skin knit itself back together, his organs stopped spilling out onto the ground, his blood didn't seep through the bandages and out onto the floor, form a puddle wide enough to drown in. Three days with the machines pumping blood and plasma and fluids back into his body; three days, the doctors had acquiesced, and then he could go home.

Home, Steve thought, and clicked viciously on the lone document in Natasha’s file. Home was seventy years in the grave.

* * *

** ДЕЛО nº17. **  
** КГБ – ДНІПРОПЕТРО́ВСЬКА О́БЛАСТЬ **  
**KGB DIRECTORATE FOR DNIPROPETROVSK REGION**

Special Division  
File #17 / Vol. 2  
█████ ██████

Military record of maintenance, deployment and experimentation  
Date opened: March 23, 1945  
Date closed: ████████, 19██  
Number of pages: 189  
Registration number: TE-0623  
Deliver to █████████ ██████

* * *

“It’s like a database,” Agent Romanoff said. She was lying on the floor on her stomach, doing stretches that looked like they had to hurt. “You type what you want to see, and it automatically pulls up whatever it’s got on that. Just type something.”

Steve frowned. He didn’t like the look of the keyboard.

It was too smooth, too thin. At least the letters were the same order as they were when he learned to type so he could pick up odd jobs running numbers behind the counters when the WPA money ran thin, while the owners sold candies, drugs, ribbons, shoe laces, Coca-Cola. He’d even got to use Col. Chester Phillips’s coveted typewriter once or twice, for letters requiring a degree more of professionalism than was usually awarded to the troops.

captain america  
About 987,000,000 results (2.24 seconds)

“See, it’s easy,” said Agent Romanoff from the floor, while Steve was still shell shocked by the sheer magnitude of that number. “If you click on any of those links, it’ll take you to the page. Like opening a book. It helps to think of it as a library, I think. At least, that’s how I learned it.”

Steve glanced down at her, curious.

She hadn’t told him anything about her past, at least not beyond what was in her official SHIELD file: Natalia Alianovna Romanova, allegedly. Native to the once-and-future Soviet Union, birth date unknown, family unknown, allies unknown, motives unknown, mentors unknown. She could be nineteen or ninety for all he knew.

“Were you around when this stuff was... discovered?”

“Invented. And yeah, more or less. I wasn’t running around with my own cutting-edge tech, I’m not Tony Stark, but I was there. It was a shitty time for everyone involved in this line of work.” She flipped over onto her back, hair falling across her face. “You know. Cold War politics. It wasn't exactly easy, being the darling of the KGB.”

“So I’ve heard.” Then the meaning behind the words sank in, and he said, “You—you look too young to be—”

Natasha Romanoff smiled like a shark, beautiful and deadly, with too many teeth. “So do you, sweetie.”

She turned over onto her front again and started stretching her legs, pointing the toes of one foot towards the ceiling, then the other. “Tell me, Rogers, after they pumped you full of that blue juice—did you ever get sick? Bet you got sick all the time before, didn’t you, but _after_ , well, that was different, wasn’t it? Not even a rattle in your chest or a stuffy nose during the pollen season. You slept for what, sixty-six, sixty-seven years, and not a single gray hair? Not a single scar that stuck around? You were the first, but you sure as hell weren’t the last. The only reason I got out was because I outlived the men that built me. So did you.”

Steve looked at her and tried not to let it show that he kind of wanted to walk out of the room and not come back, just keep walking until he dropped. He used to be scared to death he wouldn’t get to grow old; now it seemed he’d never have a chance.

“I’m not saying you’ll live forever,” she said, catching something about his expression. “As far as I know, a shot to the back of the head, execution-style, would still take you out. Jump on a bomb, or swallow a grenade, and you’ll still be pretty much fucked. But I can say from personal experience that there’s a hell of a lot of stuff you’ll be able to survive that would straight-up kill normal people. My file still says I was born in 1984, did you know that? I picked that date myself. Liked the irony. I don’t have a box of passports hidden in my basement; that’s not what deep cover is. This face, this body—this is who I am. This is, more or less, who I’ve been since the day I was born.”

“I shouldn’t have been given the serum in the first place,” Steve said, because it always should have been Bucky who'd been given that ability to survive, and then, “wait, did you get the—the serum?”

Natasha rolled over again and went back to stretching, unconcerned. “You know that saying, ‘ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies’?”

“I—sorry. I shouldn’t pry. Ma’am.”

“Боже мой, don’t you dare pull that line on me,” she said, sounding like she was trying not to laugh.

"Sorry," Steve said.

"Fuck it, don't apologize. You didn't do anything wrong," Natasha said. “You know, Coulson was so damn sure you wouldn’t be okay with women swearing? I won fifty bucks off him for that one.”

“Well, I was in the Army,” Steve said, and swallowed another honorific.

The language was hardly the most shocking thing he’d encountered so far; he remembered Peggy hissing curses through her teeth as she flipped through lists of grievance letters to be written, tied grimy fabric around a nasty scrape where a stray bullet had caught her calf, gripped his hand when Falsworth had cleaned a wound on her ribcage with alcohol. (Waste of good spirits, Dugan had grumbled, and Bucky had cuffed him over the head, none too lightly, and told him, in no uncertain terms, to show some more respect for your superior officer, Dum Dum, and a fire-mouthed lime to boot—)

Bucky and Peggy had never gotten along. Not _really_. There was the grudging mutual respect that came of knowing they were both good soldiers, but they rarely spoke beyond the occasional greeting and snappy report.

Steve thought, the last time I saw Peggy was—

The last time he’d seen Peggy had been barely a week ago. Over sixty years, for the rest of the world. He knew Peggy had married, in the meantime; had children, had grandchildren; founded SHIELD, moved back to England, helped win the war. Lived a life without him. It seemed only fair that he would be doomed to live a life without her.

“See, that’s what I told him, but he was convinced you’d be calling everyone _doll_ or _son_ and blushing if someone mentioned fucking,” Natasha said bluntly. “Probably still thinks you’re a bashful virgin. Civilians!”

“I—it’s not—” Steve frowned, feeling horribly wrong-footed. “You talk about... now...?”

Natasha waved a hand. “Look it up online if you want. There’re _tons_ of information about sex, trust me. They’ve invented things you couldn’t even imagine.”

“I didn’t... yeah. Yeah,” Steve said.

It wasn't that he didn't believe her. He was just stuck, now, thinking of the stories Bucky used to recount, the jokes swapped between soldiers, the things the sailors working at the docks had boasted and bragged about. The docks were mostly gone, now; Brooklyn had been eaten up by high-rise buildings and shopping centers, towering condominiums and flashing neon lights advertising products he’d never even heard of, microwaves and sunscreen and buffalo wings and color television.

“It was—different," Steve said.

She was still looking at him like she was expecting an explanation. Steve said, "For soldiers I mean. People weren’t exactly lining up to go dancing when I was shorter than you and twice as skinny, you know? And even when I was able to swing something, it’s not like we’d get to the necking part, most times.”

“Okay, it’s pretty cute that you say _necking_ ,” Natasha said. “That’d be _making out_ , in today’s equivalent, I guess. Hey, did anyone tell you about the base system yet?”

Steve furrowed his brows and looked down at her. “Like in baseball?”

“Something like that,” Natasha agreed, and smiled beatifically up at him.

* * *

CONSPIRACY UNLOCKED | The REAL Captain America is being kept in a government vault with Walt Disney and Ted Williams’s head

[www.captruthers.cs/738243/gov_cryo_782673ghjFHJD387b](http://www.captruthers.cs/738243/gov_cryo_782673ghjFHJD387b). _Retrieved January 09 2003_.

[FORUM](http://www.captruthers.cs/738243/gov_cryo_782673ghjFHJD387b#comments) [sort by: upvotes]

[ [ spottedfreckle ](http://www.captruthers.cs/738243/gov_cryo_782673ghjFHJD387b#comments_spottedfreckle) ]  
lmao your’e so dumb. The governemnt wouldn’t want to keep captain America a secret theyd want to unfreeze him to use as a weapon

[ [ harveydentistry ](http://www.captruthers.cs/738243/gov_cryo_782673ghjFHJD387b#comments_harveydentistry) ]  
ted Williams played for the red sox… cap must be turning in his grave (freezer?) lmao

[ [ obsessive24 ](http://www.captruthers.cs/738243/gov_cryo_782673ghjFHJD387b#comments_obsessive24) ]  
If you actually paid attention to what I was saying instead of jerking off over your revisionist fantasies maybe you’d notice that I didn’t say anything about how useful Captain America was during ww2. He literally joined the fucking army, he wouldn’t be some sort of progressive leftist sjw like soyboy internet fags like to think

[ [ notsally ](http://www.captruthers.cs/738243/gov_cryo_782673ghjFHJD387b#comments_notsally) ]  
anyone in this thread smoke weed lol. but seriously i think if the goernment was keeping captian america anywhere, why would they wait?? it doesn’t make sense not to thaw him And use him to kill putin or something. stupid

* * *

Sam had asked: When do we start? and all Steve had been able to say was _soon_. He didn’t know how to say he’d already been looking—already been looking, for three years, for sixty-seven years before that, for two and a half decades before _that_. He was seeing little pieces of Bucky everywhere: in a stranger’s brown eyes, in the blue of someone’s overcoat, in the twitch of a hand holding a lit cigarette. Boys with the same haircut, men with the same shadowed eyes; people he didn't know, would never know, could never know.

As far as most of the world knew, Bucky Barnes was cold and dead in the ground.

Rebecca Winnifred Proctor née Barnes sobriquet Becca born 1922 died 1997 married 1949 had children 1951 1953 1958. Names and dates on paper that no longer matter. He could think about generations of descendants, the Barnes family line unspooling across the world, leaving footprints everywhere. His family might have died with him, but Bucky’s had spread and grown, dozens and scores and hundreds of people, none of them the one he wanted.

Not the same. It wasn't the _same_.

Don’t pull on that thread, Natasha’s voice whispered in his head, but Steve had been pulling ever since 1925, when Tom O’Leary shoved him down and grabbed his sketchbook—Steve wasn’t going to give up without a fight; the sketchbook had cost him 35 whole cents—but then Tommy’s shoe had been pressing down on his chest, and he couldn’t breathe, couldn't even draw in enough air to cry uncle, and then—

"Pick on someone your own size, you schmuck," Bucky had yelled, and shoved his knee squarely into the seat of Tommy’s pants, sending him stumbling away.

He’d kicked a loose rock at Tommy’s retreating backside for good measure, then snatched up the dropped sketchbook, dusted it off, and presented it to Steve like a knight presenting the queen with the dragon’s head as a trophy.

"Here ya go, kid," he’d said, like Steve wasn’t only a year and some younger.

Steve glowered.

"Hey," the other boy continued, undeterred, "’m James Buchanan Barnes, but everyone calls me Jimmy, but I don’t like that either, so I’m workin' it out still. People call me _Bucky_."

"I don’t need your help," Steve had snapped, instead of introducing himself, wiping his face angrily. He didn’t get up; he could feel a sharp pain in his chest, and he thought if he tried to stand, he’d start coughing and never stop.

Bucky just crouched down next to him, instead. "Tommy’s a real pill," he’d said. "What’d you do to him, say you’re sweet on his girl?"

Steve had turned red at that, and then clenched his fists, knowing his face was covered in angry pink patches. " _No_ ," he said viciously. "I don’t—I ain’t even _like_ girls all that much, I just—he was saying my Ma was a—a—lotsa things, because we're _Micks_ and because my Pa ain’t around."

Bucky rubbed his nose thoughtfully with one hand. He didn’t say anything about Steve’s face, about the bruise on his cheekbone that his Ma would fuss over later if she wasn’t held up late at the infirmary, about the blotchy flush creeping down his neck and making him itch, about the dirt in his hair. He didn’t say anything about Steve’s Ma, or about being Irish—or about how Steve hadn’t been able to hold his own against Tommy O’Leary, who was himself Irish as well and who, at eight, was already bigger than two of Steve combined.

Instead, he tilted his head thoughtfully and said, "Wanna put pickling brine in his soda?"

Steve considered the offer suspiciously. "May-be," he relented, "but I gotta eat lunch first or my Ma would chew me out."

"You can eat at my folks’ place," Bucky suggested. He held out one grubby hand, not to help Steve up, but to show the way. Then, as if to cement the deal, "We’ve got _ice_ creams."

"Okay," Steve acquiesced, still suspicious, but unwilling to turn away the offer of free dessert, and he followed Bucky down the school-building steps and around the back alley and didn’t even mind when Bucky walked slower than he probably could have—taking his time to point out birds pecking for scraps, or interesting things strung up on washing-lines, or Mrs. Rosenthal’s scraggly old three-legged cat perched on the windowsill—so that Steve could keep pace with him.

He’d followed Bucky home that day, and he’d been following him ever since.

The history books had it wrong, of course. They always made it out to be Steve leading the way, with a loyal entourage close behind.

It had never been like that. He had always followed Bucky.

He would have followed Bucky anywhere. He would have followed Bucky into the ravine. He sometimes still wished he had.

The phone beeped; Natasha.

** FROM: Nat **

dont check the enws  
*News  
whoops)))

Steve contemplated texting Sam. He contemplated texting Natasha, asking her what the hell is going on. He thought if he tried to unhook himself from the monitors and IVs and machines to investigate, the nurse who came in periodically to check on him would actually have a conniption. She hadn’t reacted favorably when he’d wanted to leave the first time.

The remote was sat on the table next to him. He picked it up.

“—joining us today to discuss the current situation going on down at Capitol Hill. Anderson, could you tell us a little bit about what’s going on?”

“Well, Nicki, we’ve just rewatched the publicly available footage from Agent Romanoff’s testimony before Congress four days ago. It’s been back in the news in the wake of the government document leaks—which many are claiming is Romanoff’s doing, remember—now that it’s come to light that Alexander Pierce, the man named as the head of HYDRA, was murdered during the leak. The question at hand is, of course, is Agent Romanoff a hero or a—”

“—murderer of SHIELD co-director Alexander Pierce. Now let’s take a look at some of the protests taking place outside what is colloquially known as the Avengers headquarters in New York—Stark Tower, where over half a million citizens have joined an impromptu march calling for the immediate trial and sentencing of the vigilante group known as the ‘Avengers.’ The general consensus seems to be that it’s a he-said she-said situation—with him being Pierce, and her being Romanoff, of course. I mean, jeez, Alexander Pierce? The guy _turned_ _down_ the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in diplomacy and foreign affairs because he didn’t want the press for something he said was just his civic duty. I might not know everything that goes on behind the scenes, but I know for sure that he sure isn’t the villain these files are making him out to be. There's so much the public doesn't know, and the man is an obvious scapegoat for a much bigger problem. These absolutely ridiculous—”

“—rumors that Alexander Pierce, then in charge of the highly classified intelligence program known only to us as ‘Project Winter Soldier,’ was somehow responsible for the deaths of Howard Stark and his wife, long thought to be the result of a car accident in 1991. Stark, most famous for working on the Manhattan Project and Project Rebirth, the latter of which gave the world Captain America, and—”

“—some of the young people in New York apparently supporting the actions taken by Romanoff against the United States Government—it’s the middle of a school day, so I don’t know how these kids managed to beg their parents to give them the day off, but I guess if it means enough to them, their grades won’t matter in the face of—”

“—information regarding the secret government program regarding the S3 formula, known more commonly as ‘super soldier serum.’ Katie, could you tell us more about what’s going on?”

“Thank you, Mark. I certainly could. While there’s no consensus on the validity of these documents, the current evidence is certainly suggesting that Romanoff, for all her history as a double- and sometimes triple-agent, is telling the truth. The program was known as the ‘Centipede Project,’ when it was controlled by the US Government, and it was an attempt at replicating the serum originally given to Captain Amer—Captain Rogers, I mean, back in 1943. The files seem to corroborate that the original serum was entirely destroyed in the fire that damaged the lab and took Dr. Abraham Erskine’s life, but certain scientists—including Howard Stark—worked tirelessly in an attempt to recreate it. After the war, this was tied into Operation Paperclip, which is, I don’t know if you know, but the US tried to gather the smartest scientific minds from around the world, even from Germany and Austria, and that’s how we got Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the atomic—”

“Yes, thank you, Katie. Could you tell us a little bit more about the _other_ attempts at, uh, at making a new version of the serum?”

“Well, that’s the remarkable thing—the information doesn’t line up. On one page it says someone called Y——B——, the name itself is redacted, of course, even with the released documents, half the information is still confidential; on one page it references something only called the ‘Winter Soldier,’ our best guess for that one was some sort of nuclear program during the Cold War, since it’s mentioned so much during that time period; on another page, it seems to imply that there was a whole army of failed experiments, like some sort of MK-Ultra, except on a global scale, something that had to be, well, stopped. It’s certainly fascinating, Mark, that’s for sure. Once we’re able to determine if the documents are legitimate, or just very clever forgeries, we’ll have a lot more information as to how to move forward.”

“Thank you for joining us. Everyone, that was Katie Malinovskaya, author of the—”

“—police report on the shooting on George Washington Bridge in New York earlier this week is now saying that the incident was an isolated showdown between undercover police operatives and criminal fugitives. The details are classified as of now, in a twist of irony following the release of formerly classified government documents in what is being called by some ‘the greatest government leak since Julian Assange’—”

“—who, of course, is currently unavailable for questions. A representative from SHIELD declined to comment on the situation when we contacted the agency. Phil, can you recap some of the _official_ statements concerning this scandal?”

“I sure can, Jerry. Now, this whole incident—dubbed ‘#SHIELDGate’ on Twitter, I don’t know if you’ve seen that, I think it’s still trending—is a mess of conspiracy and confusion, which is why we’ve been reaching out to government representatives to get their thoughts on the matter. Senator Josef Stern, whose constituents are calling for his resignation following damning evidence suggesting a sexual assault and coercion cover-up involving a young reporter on his personal staff, said—”

“I thought I told you not to watch the news.”

Steve started, and looked up guiltily. Natasha raised her eyebrows, smiling.

“Hey, soldier,” she said, and waved at him. “Good news or bad news first?”

“Bad news,” Steve said, reaching blindly for a fistful of hospital blanket and gripping tightly so he didn't break one of the machines attached to him.

“Aw, honey bear, don't be like that. Bad news is that I have good news for you.”

Steve’s heart dropped into his stomach without warning. He scrabbled to sit up, swinging his legs stiffly over the side of the cot. “You—did you—is he—and Sam—?”

“Settle down before you hemorrhage,” Natasha said. She was wearing a red leather jacket that matched her heels; her hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail. She looked like a darker, more lethal shadow of Pepper Potts. “I’ll tell you in the car on the way to the Botanical Gardens. I’ve always wanted to tour the Bronx, if you can believe it. We can get ice pops and stupid tourist sunglasses with words on them.”

* * *

** CAPTAIN AMERICA: REVIVED after SEVENTY YEARS ON ICE **

Jennifer Walters | January 7 2011 | 7:37pm

(CNN) — The world is in shock following Monday’s press release confirming that the cultural icon known as Captain America has been revived after spending nearly sixty-seven years frozen in the Arctic.

“We are limited in what information we can release to the public at this time,” said Dr. Helen Cho, a celebrated specialist in the effects of cryostatic suspension on life forms.

“Our best guess as to how Captain Rogers was able to survive was a combination of the S3 formula [super soldier serum], which allowed his body to enter a sort of pseudo-hibernation as his blood flow slowed, and sheer luck in terms of temperature, location, everything,” the world-renowned geneticist told us.

“How he was able to stay in one spot for seventy years and come out looking the same as when he went under, we don’t know. We’re hoping to do some more tests, get some blood and tissue samples, to see if we can figure out how the S3 [serum] was able to keep him alive and stable for that long.”

Scientists worldwide had previously attempted to recreate the super soldier serum for decades with no success. A representative of SHIELD formally deemed the project “impossible” in 1974.

The partial founder and former director of SHIELD, Margaret “Peggy” Carter-Jones, known for her previous romantic ties to Captain America, has not been available for comment. The United Kingdom-native intelligence agent had previously spoken about her own efforts in replicating the serum, later dismissing the idea as “pointless” and “not something that our government should be spending its time and money on, not when there is so much else we could be doing.”

** “Steve wasn’t Captain America because he had the serum; he was Captain America because he was a good man.” **

“Steve [Rogers] was one-of-a-kind,” Carter said in 1989, the year after her retirement from her position as SHIELD director. “Not only can we not duplicate the scenario that led to the creation of Captain America, we shouldn’t even try. Steve wasn’t Captain America because he had the serum; he was Captain America because he was a good man, and no serum in the world can replace that.”

Carter, 91, currently resides in her hometown of London, England, under the care of her family. It is not currently known if she is aware of the discovery of Captain Rogers.

“There’s a very good chance that he [Captain Rogers] will be suffering from severe muscular atrophy, as well as quite possibly brain damage,” said Dr. Cho. “They haven’t let me see him yet, they just called me in about seven hours ago. I don’t know if he’s even awake, or if he’s drugged for more tests.”

Rogers was formally listed as MIA in 1945 following his final mission, which involved taking down a top-secret German plan to bomb New York City. The Captain managed to board the plane carrying the payload, but was unable to escape before it crash-landed in an unknown location—until now.

** “Rogers is no ordinary human.” **

“It’s miraculous,” said Dr. Jakob Kurylenko, a neurosurgeon specializing in cases involving patients suffering from trauma-related neural damage. “I haven’t been let in to see him yet—SHIELD is keeping everything pretty tight, for the time being—but the message I got said that they were reading consistent brain activity. It’s remarkable, really, there should be no way anyone could survive that long without food, or water, or even enough oxygen—an ordinary human would be dead within days, at best, except in some extreme cases.”

But Rogers is no ordinary human. First known to the public when he was selected for the experimental government program known as Project Rebirth, the enlisted soldier was transformed into the cultural icon known as Captain America in June of 1943, where he went on to star in propaganda films and commercials before eventually joining the front lines, both to inspire morale in troops and to fight with them.

Katie Malinovskaya, a journalist and historian best known for her award-winning 2004 book on Rogers ( _OPSEC: Decoding the Classified Files of Project Rebirth, the HYDRA Threat of the Forties, and Captain America_ ), which detailed his life before Project Rebirth as well as after, said that Rogers is unlikely to take up his former role as Captain America.

“Who knows, maybe he’ll wake up and take to this century like a duck to water,” the author told CNN over the phone. “But for him, it’s probably going to be like the past seventy years didn’t happen, and that’s enough to confuse anyone.”

The idea of Rogers taking up the shield again is “laughable,” she said.

“The shield _was_ found with him, that’s the picture everyone used—the shield under the ice. But think about it from his perspective for a moment—he’s lost almost two-thirds of a century. That’s going to take some getting used to.”

If he does return as Captain America, it’s “probably not going to be like what we remember. Things have changed a lot since 1945, and there’s no guarantee he [Rogers] will be the same person he was then,” she said. “And even if he is, is that something we want?”

Would the idea of a man from the 1940s playing the role of Captain America be a dangerous thing? Malinovskaya isn’t sure.

“I don’t know. Nobody knows,” she said. “We’re going to have to wait and see. The truth is, he’s here now, and—assuming he wakes up aware of who he is and what’s going on—he’s going to be here, like it or not. We’re going to have to wait. There’s really no way to know.”

If one of the most celebrated biographers of Captain America currently living (Malinovskaya won a Pulitzer for her published work in 2009) doesn’t know, then it’s safe to say there’s no way to be sure.

**[Read an excerpt from Malinovskaya’s best-seller here](https://bit.ly/2JZNEpG). **

As to his mental state, Dr. Cho agreed it’s also “difficult to tell.”

“Neural activity doesn’t necessarily equal awareness of what’s going on. He might never wake up, and we’ll be stuck with Captain America in a coma for another fifty years. Or maybe he’s already awake, and that information just hasn’t been released to us yet. Like I said, it’s not something that I know a lot about.”

“SHIELD told me I was brought in because of my work concerning clathrate hydrates as a possible form of induced cryostasis,” Dr. Cho told us.

“I’ve done work on preserved bodies, and specimens such as bacterial strains that have managed to stay remarkably intact for decades, if not centuries, sometimes even longer. We found nematodes that managed to be revived after thousands of years. But of course, nothing could prepare me for dealing with this situation.”

More information will be released as it is known. ⍟

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That thing about Captain America punching Hitler's teeth out on the cover of his first single? [Yep, it's true](https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/7849/captain_america_comics_1941_1).
> 
> Sources and references round-up can be found [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pBDOfZDeL7HyiRrvYYm8Ue0pe44g9kX8xBj4egtBq7A/edit?usp=sharing).


	2. Somewhere it still moves

* * *

During a period of twelve years, over twenty billion dollars were spent on searching for what could have remained of Captain America. Much in the manner of the Space Race – which, notably, culminated in a team of American astronauts reaching the Moon first, although a Soviet cosmonaut by the name of Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space – the search, known to the American intelligence agencies as Operation Mascot, and to the Russian intelligence agencies as ‘Проект Капель’ (Project Raindrop), successfully drained a significant portion of Cold War resources from both governments. While the Cold War was as much a façade of posturing and bluffing as it was a true hand-to-hand instance of warfare, the fact that the field of combat was primarily political jurisdiction, international negotiations, espionage and blackmail, and the thorough airing of one another’s dirty laundry did not negate its impact on the world. ‘If America were to find Captain America, we would have won the war without dropping a single bomb,’ Senator and Reverend Frederick Brown Harris wrote in 1952, ‘whereas if Russia were to find him, they would have won not only the war, but the world.’ Whether Senator Harris’s statement is entirely correct is still the subject of debate, yet the fact remains that the gravitas contained within the statement itself is hardly exaggerated. The search for Captain America, from the moment of his disappearance in the early months of 1945 to the official declassification of the files of Project Rebirth in 1967, was, to many, the catalyst that would be the tipping point on the scale of global political unrest and international tension.

Divakaruni, Sayantani. _The Search for Steve Rogers: The Cold War Race To Find Captain America_. First Edition Viking Press, 2003. ( _Chapter eleven: The Cost of Competition_ , pp. 198-264.)

* * *

**Washington, DC — November 29, 1991**

Sokolov frowned down at the files spread out on the table in front of her. “No! It is too risky to bring Soldier in from the dacha. Even if your people truly are looking to, how would you say it, give him... test drive—? You have not paid upfront for additional services, and scratches on paint would be... dangerous. For all of us.”

The American looked at her with his bland eyes. He was smoking—a detestable habit. It made her teeth itch.

“We only want,” he said, “to prove that your _soldier_ will be the considerable _asset_ you claim it is.”

“Ask Sasha!” she snapped, waving a hand. “Sashenka, tell him.”

Sasha glanced at her. He didn't look nervous, yet.

Good.

“Sir,” Sasha said. “The Soldier, the... _Asset_ has not failed a mission in over forty years. His record is unsurpassable. _He_ is untraceable. If you’re looking for a weapon, with all due respect, he’s the best you’re going to be able to find.”

The American still did not look convinced.

Sokolov gestured towards him, his robust gut and gaudy necktie. “You want peace, do you not? Soldier is a blight on our vision of a better world. He is—corrupted. There is not an easy way to wipe away that stain. What we seek to do is to prevent other mistakes of the similar nature. Allowing Stark to bring his formula to American government for testing would be... one such mistake. I trust we agree on this matter.”

“Yes,” said the American. He swallowed thickly. “Yes, we agree. About that.”

Sasha spoke up again, then. “The Asset is an error made into a correction. By using him to eliminate the potential for other mistakes, by eradicating such mistakes before they even happen... that’s creating a peaceful world, isn’t it?”

The American nodded.

Sokolov clucked her tongue. “Soldier, Asset, whatever you wish to call him... He knew Stark, before. It would be—fitting. An end to this cycle. Like your Frankenstein’s monster.”

“Yes,” the American said. Sokolov could see him warming to the idea, the first pieces of tinder catching sparks in his head. “Yes, I think it would be very fitting, to send... him.”

“We can arrange any situation to your liking,” said Sokolov. “All we require from you is payment and confirmation. Once it is done... product will be in your hands.”

“That’s where I come in,” Sasha added, jovial. “The Asset requires a handler. Without something to focus his hand, he tends to fall apart. Believe me, it’s not pretty.”

“I can imagine. My wife feels the same way about me.” The American wrote something down, quickly, then wiped the sweat off his forehead. “I’ll have the money delivered by the first of December.”

“Excellent,” Sokolov said, smiling without showing her teeth. “We will let you know details of it all when we finish objective. Rest assured, Mr. President, Stark’s formula will never reach its intended destination.”

Sasha had already slipped into the back room with Karpov by the time Sokolov managed to excuse herself. She made a face when she passed them to splash water on her face, and rub the pale lipstick off onto the back of her hand. She said, in Russian, “Fuck, but I hate putting on airs.”

Karpov laughed. “With the—the accent, and the—?”

“Soviet mystique,” Sasha said, and snorted inelegantly. “Good news is, I think this will actually work. If we can stop Stark, well—! No more super soldiers.”

“It’s like the nuclear program,” Sokolov said, in English. “When we have a bomb, everyone else wants a bomb. Take away their ability to make a bomb, and suddenly they realize how dangerous that bomb could be. If that weapon were to fall into the wrong hands, the consequences could be... well. Pretty fucked for us all.”

“Ah, but this is Russia _,_ ” Sasha said, mocking the heavy accent she and Karpov adopt for negotiations with the Americans, “where all the women are ballerinas and all the men are KGB, right? They play right into our hands.”

“This shit is already pizdets, motherfucker,” said Sokolov. “Fuck, I need a cigarette. And a bottle of ibuprofen.”

“I have no love for Stark,” said Karpov. “How are we going to play this?”

“Sasha can work out the details,” Sokolov said, rubbing her temples. The American had stank of cologne and sweat; her head was beginning to hurt from the effort of forcing words through her teeth. “Normally I would make it quick, but Vaska and I share a sentiment when it comes to Stark. Fucking _pindos_! I think I want him to see the Soldier’s face.”

“Aw, still bitter over some stolen blueprints?” teased Karpov.

“Bitter over the destruction of my life’s work,” Sokolov corrected. “Or did you forget Marusya and her father? I have no patience for Americans who all see us all as drunken vodka-loving ushanka-wearing ebanashki who worship Stalin and Communism. And it’s so fucking easy for Stark to discredit _my_ work, because I’m just some Slavic пизда who spread her legs to get her designs seen by the UN, right? So it was so easy for him to take everything, because there’s no way I earned it anyway, _right?_ I want the Soldier to kill him, and I want him to know who it is who sent the Soldier, and I want the world to know that Stark died because he fucked with someone he didn’t think could fuck back.”

“I’ll drink to that, vodka-loving stereotypes or not,” Karpov said. “Alex, are you confident the Americans will pay the fees?”

“I showed them enough of my tits that they’ll pay,” Sokolov interrupted dryly.

Once someone assumed something about you, it was easy to keep up the façade. The American thought Russia was like he had seen in his war movies and dramatized documentaries—schools of young girls trained to be sluts and spies, men drinking _kvas_ and smoking while they hunted bears, guns and money and snow. The easy stereotypes.

“Besides, if they don’t, it’s not like anyone other than Sasha can handle the Soldier.”

Sasha grinned. “Damn right. He still thinks I’m the Agent, sometimes, but I think with another wipe we can make him understand that I’m—well. Better.”

“Sometimes I almost feel sorry for the poor motherfucker,” said Karpov, and pulled a face. He took the red notebook out of his inside pocket and passed it over to Sasha. “I’ll want that back when you’re done with Stark, you hear me?”

“Nagging old woman,” Sasha said, and rolled his eyes. “It’ll be fine. I know how to handle the— are we actually calling him the Asset now? That’s what the Americans want?”

“Says the American in the room,” Karpov muttered. Sasha, wisely, ignored him.

“The Americans pay for him, they can call him whatever they want,” Sokolov said lazily.

“Fine. The Asset. Whatever, DC isn’t a bad place to keep something dangerous; I have storage crates in Long Island we could keep him in, if it comes to that. Guns are made to shoot, knives are made to cut, grenades are made to explode; he’s made to do what he does, and he does it well. In order to keep things peaceful, we sometimes have to make... sacrifices. If Stark is allowed to create more super soldiers, that peace will be threatened. Stark is a necessary sacrifice. It’s a pity—! Even when he wasn’t using stolen ideas, he could be quite intelligent, sometimes. But that’s what checks and balances lead to.”

“The ends justify the means. Or whatever,” said Karpov. Then, to Sokolov, “Hey, you wanted a smoke, right? I think I have some Belomorkanal in my suit jacket.”

“I really shouldn’t,” said Sokolov, “but fuck it, Vaska, _thank you_.”

“Just doing my job,” Karpov said, a wry tilt to his jaw, and grabbed his briefcase. “And so our little soldatchka moves to DC like a politician. Sashka, make sure no one else sees that book. Your accent may be atrocious, but it still works, and that means it would work for someone else, too. The only thing worse than someone else’s weapons running amok is _our_ weapon running amok while we can’t control it.”

“He’s not quite a Gatling gun,” said Sokolov, amused.

“He was a person,” said Sasha, “once.”

* * *

** The role of CAPTAIN AMERICA in the 21st century **

Christine Everhart | July 28 2007 | OPINION

(Vanity Fair) — Captain America, The Star-Spangled Man with a Plan, Captain Rogers, Steven Grant Rogers, born in 1918 and listed as MIA in 1945. During World War Two, he was a propaganda piece turned military hero, earning a Medal of Honor in 1944 for his service on the front lines of some of the grisliest skirmishes in the European Theater of the Second World War. While his cinematographic footprint is sorely outdated (most early _Captain America_ films featured the titular hero knocking out a creeping, mustachioed Hitler caricature with stage-choreographed machismo, pausing only to plant one on a mysteriously blonde-ified Peggy Carter), his cultural legacy endures.

Steve Rogers has been the subject of over two dozen fictionalized films detailing his life (from the generally lauded Academy Award-winning _An American Dreamer_ to the box office bomb _A Hero Grows in Brooklyn_ ), a handful of documentaries ranging from the History Channel to a Ken Burns twelve-part miniseries noted for its inclusion of Rogers’s early life in New York, and more written biographies than one could shake a stick at. In the American cultural history, his image is solidly cemented. The question we face today is: Does the modern world have room for Captain America?

The answer, of course, requires a delve into the history of media surrounding Captain America, beginning square in the middle of the 1960s. For a brief period during the height of Cold War paranoia, the character of Captain America was co-opted by a radical group of McCarthyite extremists hellbent on proving to the world that Communism had no place in America, Land of the Free. Their vision of Rogers was the harbinger of the jingoistic parodies often featured on comedy shows such as SNL or The Daily Show (interestingly enough, 1962 saw the release of _Captain America Versus the Red Skull_ , widely riffed on for its radical anticommunist politics, featuring the eponymous Red Skull – literally – defending the reds).

The 1960s Captain America had settled down in the fifties alongside the rest of the Greatest Generation, raising a nuclear family in the wake of nuclear fallout – two point five kids and a white picket fence. It is, of course, no coincidence that the image of Steve Rogers as a traditionally American man fronted the anti-intellectualism era of the Red Scare.

Captain America’s image got another radical makeover in the mid-eighties, following a highly publicized interview with gay activist and teacher Arnie Roth – a childhood friend – whereupon his legacy was adopted by LGBT activists fighting against Reaganomics and the AIDS Crisis.

As expected, Captain America’s new status as a de facto queer icon – in the tradition of Judy Garland and Britney Spears – didn’t sit well with the Baby Boomers who had grown up on the sanitized fifties ideal of the American Dream.

_Their_ Captain America had pulled himself up by his bootstraps to settle in a comfortably middle-class homestead; _their_ Captain America would have voted straight-ticket Republican. _Their_ Captain America was part of the Greatest Generation, born into the end of the First World War and smartly marching into the idyllic aftermath of the Second.

Stepping outside Captain America's sphere of political influence and ongoing controversy reveals that the iconic character had his fingers in dozens of pies - or rather, the pies sought the fingers, as it were. Ranging from children's school uniforms ("Every hero needs a uniform!") to prophylactics ("Captain America says, 'I never go anywhere without my trusty shield!'") to insecticides ("Stamp out those pesky pests," featuring a sardonically 1940s racist caricature of Japanese rhinoceros beetles) to the advent of color television ("See the man himself LIVE in RED WHITE and BLUE!").

Of course, it wasn't all kids' clothes and condoms - the image license for representations of the character (including but not limited to the production and selling of costumes, references in media such as film or television, commercial advertising and endorsement, and comic book imagery) is jointly owned by Walt Disney Co. and Stark Ind., with profits hotly contested between the two media empires. Any Walmart in America can boast shelves full of Honey Nut Cheerios featuring Captain America (or, if preferred, Cap'n Crunch's "red white and blue special," styled in the pattern of the iconic shield itself).

Captain America's image appears on t-shirts, school supplies, water bottles, art supplies, non-profit organizations, Halloween costume websites, album covers (including, notably, the 1987 Guns N' Roses Album "Appetite for Destruction"), and more. The societal portrait of the man himself has been filtered through over sixty years of pop culture; it's only to be expected that a certain degree of retrofitting would inevitably occur.

The truth of the matter is that it’s difficult to determine what modern politics the original Captain America would endorse. Even setting aside the fact that we know so little about Rogers’s life, how would you expect a man born nearly a century ago to vote on the Patriot Act, racially segregated gerrymandering, or marriage equality, when none of those things were present during his lifetime?

Explaining the Internet to someone who didn't even have color television would be like teaching a fish to bicycle. Inflation and the technological revolution would be impossible to mesh with Captain America’s 1940s mindset. It would be ludicrous to hand the man himself an Apple iPhone and expect him to know what to do with it.

Growing up in the midst of the Great Depression and coming of age in a world on the brink of one of the worst wars of all time, it is still unlikely that Rogers’s surface politics had the conservative tilt that many like to claim. The neighborhood where Rogers (and his surrogate older brother, James “Bucky” Barnes) lived was known for its working class, Irish, and Jewish populations, all marginalized communities at the time.

Rogers himself, a first-generation Irish immigrant whose mother had emigrated during the aftereffects of the Great Famine in hopes of finding a better life for her son in America, would have grown up around impoverished children in similar situations to his own.

The oft-touted portrayal of Rogers as a staunch supporter of closed borders has no basis in fact – this is a man who, after all, strong-armed his way into serving alongside Gabriel Jones and James Morita in a time when Japanese and African-American soldiers were restricted to segregated units (or, in the case of Morita, American internment camps).

While he might have looked the part of the Aryan superhuman, what little peer testimony remains suggests that Rogers did not subscribe to the mindset itself.

Although the declassification of the files detailing Project Rebirth in 1967 showed the world that Rogers was not above flaunting the law when the situation called for it, his multiple outstanding felony charges – enlisting under false information was a felony even in the forties – were brushed aside by many as “army fever” and fervent patriotism.

With no way to speak to the man himself, the true answer is perpetually up in the air, but even a quick glance at the rest of Rogers’s policies suggests that his motivations were less pro-America than they were anti-Nazi. One of his most famous sayings – _I don’t like bullies_ – is rarely quoted in full, the second part of the quotation being, of course, “I don’t care where they’re from.”

Historically, Rogers was a New Deal Democrat with a leftist streak exemplified in his support of desegregated units, women serving alongside men, and the fair treatment of POWs. Still, this description – however glowing – applies to a man from the forties, when it was still illegal for interracial couples to marry, LGBT individuals were openly persecuted as perverts and sexual deviants, women were required to wear skirts and heels in the workplace, and the epitome of masculinity – something Rogers himself contributed to, knowingly or otherwise – was a forceful, firm-handed man who wasn’t afraid to paddle his disobedient children or drink a glass of Scotch each evening after work.

As progressive as Rogers’s policies might have seemed at the time, one has to wonder how he would have responded to seeing an African-American man be elected President, or women wearing jeans. Forget the legendary _Kilroy_ _was_ _here_ ; Rogers went MIA before the invention of the smiley face. Attempting to adapt Captain America for a modern audience will inevitably collapse under scrutiny: his political views, like the man himself, are best left behind in the 1940s, where history can be the true – and impartial – judge.

**READ MORE:[Exclusive interview with Sayantani Divakaruni, author of](fake%20link)[ _The Search for Steve Rogers: The Cold War Race To Find Captain America_ , Viking Press](fake%20link)**.

* * *

“There is also the matter,” Fury had said, “of what we’re going to tell the press.”

He held out a rectangular object; on the screen it said, THE AGE OF MIRACLES: CAPTAIN AMERICA RETURNS FROM THE DEAD AFTER 70 YEARS, with a blurry image of the too-bright, too-colorful Times Square.

It was like something out of a dream. Fury touched the device with a casual finger, and the images vanished.

“Things are a hell of a lot different now,” Fury continued, as though it hadn't been obvious. “I’ve assigned you to a team specializing in acclimation. We’ve got medical professionals who usually handle vets with PTSD already working on the case, and I’ve hand-picked Agent Romanoff to safely deliver you to a secure location while you adjust.”

Steve opened his mouth, then closed it. He didn’t know what the device Fury was holding was for; he didn’t know what PTSD meant. He was still trying to wrap his mind around the idea of being _asleep for almost seventy years_.

He said, “Do you know—can you look up military records on soldiers miss—?”

Fury looked sympathetic. “If you’re wanting more information on your sweetheart, you’re a few years too late for that, I’m afraid. Director Carter passed in 2007. It’ll be five years this December.”

“She—” Steve stopped. A world without Peggy in it was impossible to imagine. “Was it—?”

“In her sleep,” Fury said, gruff but not unkind. “Her children were there, and her grandchildren. It was her time. She and Howard Stark—your old war buddy—were responsible for turning SHIELD into what we are today. Her husband was one of your Army pals. General and Doctor Gabriel Jones. I’ll have someone drop off a biography for you to read, instead of just the SparkNotes version.”

Children. _Grandchildren_. And married to Gabe Jones. It hadn’t slipped his notice that Fury seemed to be in charge of the proceedings at hand.

“She and Gabe, that was—that was all right, then?”

“From all accounts, they had a happy marriage, if that’s what you meant,” Fury said.

“No, that’s good. That’s good,” Steve said.

Trust Peggy to get herself involved in something like that. He thought, if anyone could make Gabe stay in line, it would have been— And then he had to bite down on his tongue before he laughed at the mental image of Peggy and Gabe holding each other back by the collar, because they were _dead_ , the both of them; Peggy and Gabe, and Dernier and Dugan and Falsworth and Morita, and Howard, and— _and_ —

And if Bucky had been found, he’d have been there when Steve had woken up. Steve knew, deep down, that that meant Bucky had died in that ravine.

Steve thought: _why did you even bother bringing me back to life?_

“Welcome to the world of color,” Fury said, and clapped him on the back.

* * *

SHIELD had wasted no time in shuffling him off to a remote cabin in what Fury swore was a _private, secluded location_.

As though Steve had been doubting their ability to disappear him when it was convenient.

They left him with a phone ("One of Stark’s," Fury told him; phones could do all sorts of things now, and everyone and their mother had one), a few boxes of history books, and enough food and water to last a month. Steve thought about asking if they’d adjusted the rations to account for the serum—Howard had estimated his metabolism operated at four times a normal human’s—but he could barely make himself answer any of their questions, much less ask for anything.

They’d given him clothes: strange, but soft. The shoes didn’t have laces, but something Agent Romanoff had called _Velcro_.

“Enjoy your vacation,” Agent Romanoff had said, with a crooked half smile on her face that made him feel sick to his stomach, and then the door to the cabin had closed.

He tried the handle, even though he already knew they’d locked it. The affirmation made him feel worse.

Fury had it wrong, he thought, staring at the tiny sliver of murky sunlight creeping through the window. The past was in color; everything he’d seen so far was washed-out, gray and beige and empty.

* * *

captain america marriage equality  
About 3,020,000 results (1.01 seconds)

Did **Captain** **America** “come out” in support  
of gay **marriage**?

PEOPLE Magazine – 3 years ago

Steve Rogers ( **Captain America** ) has maintained a  
strong-and-silent attitude when it comes to answering  
questions from... responded that his personal belief on  
gay **marriage** was that people should be able to “love  
who they love,” a sentiment frequently...

_(You visited this page on 07/24/2014.)_

* * *

[limenjolras](https://limenjolras.tumblr.com/post/186526258081/look-idc-if-captain-america-is) :

> look tbh idc if captain america isnt straight (gay? bi? whatever), he's still military propaganda. if uncle sam was a gay dude, that wouldn't change the fact that when he's telling men "i want YOU," he's meaning, TO JOIN THE ARMY. captain america is quite possibly the most famous piece of military propaganda the us government has ever devised. would it be cool if he was gay? yeah sure, representation is cool... yknow, for all those little qweer kiddies who want to grow up and join the military... yeah, nope.

_ Tagged: #i'm not joining this discourse in full but wow some of you guys are. how to say. #fucking idiots? #i don't give a fuck if cap is gay that doesn't mean he's not #a mouthpiece for the military industrial complex #and like. dude im trans so #forgive me if i won't lick his boots like #you guys always seem to #anyway #q slur_

[hxh-sfw](https://hxh-sfw.tumblr.com/830103788537/usagiway-guys-do-we) :

> [usagiway](https://usagiway.tumblr.com/post/186518672113/guys-do-we-have-to-do) :
> 
> guys do we have to do this sort of thing?? it's not the same as speculating about george washington's sexuality or whatever, cap is a real person who's literally alive right now and living in dc. arguing about if he's gay or not is just uncool

lmao george washington was a "real person" too wtf

_ Tagged: #ya'll are so dumb sometimes #cap discourse #this shit is just like that frerard daily mail article #you know the one _

[lessita](https://lessita.tumblr.com/post/748536891102/saying-captain-america-is-gay-is) :

> saying captain america is gay is the stupidest thing i've ever heard. first of all you can support gay marriage without actually being gay. second of all he's a REAL PERSON and his sexuality is none of your business. or did you forget that he and agent carter were involved.

_ Tagged: #like not to Disc Horse (tm) but im sick of people erasing peggy carters importance to cap #support peggy!!!!! #lessita.txt _

[limenjolras](https://limenjolras.tumblr.com/post/440263579782/sensual-brony-stark-personally-i) :

> [sensual-brony-stark](https://sensual-brony-stark.tumblr.com/post/781245273301/personally-i-dont-think-cap-is) :
> 
> personally i don't think cap is gay. i don't have anything against gays i just don't think cap is one of them

op's tags: _[#watch sjws call me a homophobe #ricky talks #captain america](https://sensual-brony-stark.tumblr.com/post/781245273301/personally-i-dont-think-cap-is)_

like lmao dude wtf?? saying you "don't think" a REAL PERSON IS GAY (nvm that We Don't Know if he is or not ffs) is... guess what, homophobic!

_ Tagged: #"i'm not homophobic" [immedietly says homophobic shit] #yeah real smooth buddy _

* * *

“There’ll be image and licensing horsefuckery to sort out either way,” Fury said. He sounded exhausted. “Romanoff, for God’s sake have someone call Isaiah Ross before Hollywood decides to swamp our ass with subpoenas six ways from Sunday.”

“Stick one of your little underdog lackeys on it,” Romanoff snipped, “ _sir_.”

“You’re lucky I haven’t fired you,” Fury said.

Romanoff smiled wide, but it looked dangerous. “I don’t work for you.”

Steve watched the two of them verbally spring-boarding off each other and kept his mouth shut tight. First, Agent Romanoff had said: Sir. First, Agent Romanoff had said: With all due respect, Captain Rogers's public image is no longer the property of the United States Government. He has a right to control his own press, or lack thereof, particularly where the _miracle_ of his own revival is concerned. Agent Romanoff had said: Look, I find it helps to think of it as a living will. Think Disney or MGM.

Agent Romanoff had said: I suggest we follow his wishes on this one, Nick.

“And you think Isaiah is going to be able to hold off the pap coterie single-handed? This is the problem with waiting, Romanoff. We’ve got every damn person with a camera and a microphone parked on our front lawn. Not exactly the best rep for a covert intelligence agency, is it?”

“You know,” Romanoff said sweetly, “you could always yell at those damn kids to get off your damn lawn, Nick.”

No longer the property of the United States Government, Steve thought, and tightened his jaw.

Agent Romanoff had said _government_ _property_ with the same inflection that Col. Phillips had used, a few weeks or six and a half decades ago.

“No interviews,” he blurted out, “Miss—Miss Romanoff, I don’t want any... I can do that, right? No... no interviews, not right now at least, I—I can’t, I— _please_.”

Romanoff tilted her head so she could look directly at him. Her eyes softened, but when she spoke, she addressed Fury. “Look. Compromising is my specialty. I can keep the press out of our hair for twenty-four hours, _tops_ , if he stays here. If we send him out to Banner’s hidey-hole for a couple weeks, we can get a bit more slack. The Hill will concede on a half-month of downtime before getting back on the horse again.”

Steve slumped backwards into the chair they’d given him, pressing the tips of his fingers against his eyelids until white sparks blurred across his vision. Sixty-something years, he thought, almost seven decades since—

No longer the property of the government. The anger was rising like bile in the back of his throat.

Fury closed his good eye for a moment. “Romanoff, get me Isaiah on my private line. Put McPhearson in charge of PR damage control. Have Rumlow and Smith handle Rogers—I want you on the transport team. Get May or Rollins to run comms for sitrep. Make it Scale A if you have to; I want this cleared before the CIA comes sniffing at our heels.”

“Tick, tock, little mouse,” Agent Romanoff said, sounding bored. “You want your coffee too, while I’m at it, Nick?” She flashed a smile again, then turned and sauntered out the door without looking back.

* * *

**[ SHIELD co-founder Agent Peggy Carter diagnosed with Alzheimer’s ](https://www.pagesix.com/2010/08/15/shield-co-founder-peggy-carter-diagnosed-with-alzheimer-s) **

Eugene Carroll | August 15 2010 | 4:58pm

(Page Six) — Agent Margaret “Peggy” Carter, best known for her major role in founding the government security organization SHIELD (Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division), has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

Carter, 90, is reportedly dealing with “moderate progressive Alzheimer’s.” Dr. Jakob Kurylenko, Carter’s personal doctor, says she struggles most with abstract concepts, time, place and recall, as well as long-term memory placement. However, according to a close family friend, her verbal communication and concentration are still operating normally.

“She seems to be able to recognize her friends and family, but frequently forgets how old they are, or what year it is,” the friend informed us. “She still thinks her kids are babies sometimes, but she knows who they are.”

In 2006, Carter suffered a mild stroke at her private residence in the greater London area, where she currently lives with her oldest son, Gabriel James Carter-Jones, as her primary caretaker.

A representative for Carter did not immediately return a request for comment.

** READ MORE: [Top 15 times Agent Carter was cooler than you](https://bit.ly/2Zk5GZa) – [All the info on the upcoming “Peggy Carter: Agent of SHIELD” show](https://www.pagesix.com/2010/08/14/all-the-info-on-the-upcoming-peggy-carter-agent-of-shield-show) – [Divorcing the life of Peggy Carter from the legacy of Captain America](https://www.pagesix.com/2014/08/15/divorcing-the-life-of-peggy-carter-from-the-legacy-of-captain-america/) **

* * *

Sam was waiting outside the room, flipping through an old back-issue of _Better Homes & Gardens_. “Dude,” he said when Steve managed to hobble into the hallway, muscles stiff from disuse, “you look like hell.”

Steve made a face. “I’ve had worse,” he said, because he had.

His brain was running on autopilot, trying to figure out what Natasha might have meant, what the lead could possibly be, what could have happened to Bucky. Did he have a place to stay? Did he have money? Was he eating? Was he hurt? Was he—?

 _Does he remember_ , Steve didn’t let himself think. _Does he know who I am?_

It was selfish, really. But he had never been anything else, when it came to Bucky.

Sam was holding a cup of coffee and looking blearily belligerent. Steve reached out as though to grab Sam’s shoulder, letting his hand slide down Sam’s arm to his wrist, and slipped the thumb drive into his hand. Sam curled his fingers around it, tapped the back of Steve’s hand with two fingers; _gotcha_. “Whoa, okay, don’t make these guys throw you back in a straightjacket just to get the saline drip in, man.”

“’M fine,” Steve mumbled, drinking in the comforting feeling of Sam’s heartbeat, the faint pulse in his throat, the reassuring steadiness of his chest. Behind him, Natasha was signing egress paperwork and smiling in a way that let everyone know not only that she was armed enough to take down the entire building but that she could do it barehanded. “You got a car?”

“Nah, weirdly enough, your buddy didn’t exactly reimburse me for that rental he blew up the other day,” Sam said lightly, but his hand came to rest on Steve’s shoulder, steadying him.

“I’ve got us a ride,” said Natasha. Her heels click-clicked across the hospital floor; she was now wearing a pair of enormous, lime-green sunglasses that made her look like a 45-year-old model, Botox and all. “And, more importantly, I’ve got us a lead.” She tossed Sam the keys, and Sam fumbled them, swearing under his breath. “You get to drive, hotshot. I call shotgun.”

Sam patted the top of Steve’s head in sympathy. “Peanut gallery for you, brother.”

“Fuck off,” Steve said into Sam’s shoulder. He smelled warm, like he’d just finished a run. Sam huffed a laugh, then steered them both towards the door.

* * *

The first time Steve had opened the Winter Soldier file, he’d been standing over an empty grave. It had been fitting, somehow—one undead soldier in front of him, another in his hands. The file seemed too slim, in his hands; too small to contain everything.

The small picture taped to the inside cover of the file—the picture that was Bucky, back when he was still _Bucky_ —was the same one that had been plastered on biographies, Netflix documentaries, magazine pages, even National Geographic’s glossy cover: Bucky, in 1941, before the war had begun in earnest, wearing his olive drab uniform, hat slightly off-kilter. There was a hint of a smile on his face, his lips parted slightly, just enough expression there for Steve to know what he’d been thinking. He’d always been a cocksure bastard, Steve thought, touching the corner of the photograph with one fingertip, and then he thought, maybe he didn’t actually know what Bucky was thinking, not after all.

* * *

“We’re going by proximity,” Natasha said, after the funeral, after the graveyard, after the file with Bucky’s name on it. Her fingers were tapping a relentless pattern against the dashboard of the car. “I’m assuming we’re all in the know about the plan. The car isn’t bugged; I swept it myself. Only bugs in here are us cockroaches.”

Butterflies, Steve thought. Thin metal wires tracing all the way back to the still-burning detritus of SHIELD, to Nick Fury, to the government itself. He had seen enough of the documents leaked to know that SHIELD had been keeping a hell of a lot of other countries' secrets alongside their own.

The radio was playing some Top 40 station that made Sam’s eyebrows move in disappointed ways each time Natasha bobbed her head along to the noise, and Steve kept seeing Bucky everywhere he looked, out of the corner of his eye, a ghost story taken literally.

“I’d figured the plan was to track down the remaining HYDRA bases and blow ’em to smithereens,” Sam said. “Is there something else?”

“Something else,” Natasha agreed. “Steve, if you’re determined to pull on this thread—”

“You know I am,” Steve said quickly. “Nat, you _know_ I—”

“—then we’re going to need all the intel we can get,” she continued, as though he hadn’t said anything. “We’re boots on the ground, we’re dealing with strict opsec here, so we’ve got limited sources to tap. Assume Fury’s out of the game. Isaiah’s doing me a personal favor at the moment. Maria’s going to have her hands full doing cleanup on Capitol Hill. I can take a guess you don’t want anyone else from the alphabet agencies—or _Stark_ , God—involved in this.”

“ _No_ ,” Steve said, “no, I... I don’t want anyone else knowing.”

“Coolio,” said Natasha, and flicked Sam’s ear when he tried to reach desperately for the stereo. “The official reports that'll go back to Maria and whoever else we decide to give clearance are going to say that our mission is to take down HYDRA. For all intents and purposes, that’s all we need to tell anyone. We’ve got a window of a week, maybe two, before the suits pull themselves together enough to realize they should have been coming after us since the beginning. They’re going to want you to stand trial as well,” she said, and Steve tightened his grip on the file in his lap, slid the tips of his fingers under the cover like he could feel Bucky’s face through the photograph. “I can call in a favor or two from some old friends to keep you at a distance for a while, but we’re only going to be stalling for time unless you drop completely off the map.”

Sam gave up on the radio and slumped back in the driver’s seat. “And what would that look like, huh?”

“Not as easy as it would have been before the fiasco,” Natasha admitted. “To put it simply—I pull some threads, disappear you, saddle you with state-of-the-art papers and covers, and send you off to—Savannakhét. I’d find somewhere. That's hardly the point. You’d be out, but you’d be out for good.”

“Natasha, I can’t,” said Steve, at the same time Sam said, “Man, hell no, I got a family.”

“Which is why I already decided that’s not an option,” Natasha finished, and sat back like the case was closed.

Steve looked down at the file in his lap. Looking at it made his fingers itch; the impulse to shred it into pieces was almost overwhelming. It wasn’t him, his brain kept on telling him, traitorous and vicious in the back of his head. It wasn’t _him_. But it had been.

He had read SHIELD's official file on Bucky, of course. Back in 2011, with the file on Howard and on Peggy and on Morita and Jones and Falsworth and Dugan and Dernier. The Howling Commandos, people had called them. But Bucky's file had been clinically dispassionate—James B. Barnes, formally listed as MIA in February of 1945 three days before the beginning of Operation Cold Comfort.

“Hey,” Sam said, squinting at the GPS on Natasha’s phone, blinking faintly back at him. “Hey, where are we even going?”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't realize until after writing it that I'd inadvertently implied that George HW Bush had Howard and Maria Stark assassinated. Whoops?
> 
> Sources and references round-up can be found [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pBDOfZDeL7HyiRrvYYm8Ue0pe44g9kX8xBj4egtBq7A/edit?usp=sharing).


	3. The hero who sacrificed everything

* * *

If I love you   
is that a fact or a weapon?

Margaret Atwood, _We Are Hard on Each Other_.

* * *

They ended up at the airport.

Natasha produced plane tickets out of nowhere, yanked three dark green duffel bags out of the trunk, and left the car parked in the cell phone lot. She paused next to the front window, putting on pale lipstick, adjusting the nondescript mask she always wore, and Sam took the opportunity to get all up into Steve’s space and glance unsubtly towards the file, which was still clutched reflexively in Steve's hand.

“You’re serious about this, then, huh?”

“More than I’ve ever been about anything,” Steve said. Sam blinked.

“When I said before that I didn’t know if your—friend,” and Sam hesitated, “if he was the kind you save or the kind you stop—”

“I can do both,” Steve said.

Sam said, "Yeah?"

Steve shrugged. "I couldn't save him the first time," he said. "I'm sure as hell not going to let anything stop me, this time around."

"Well," Sam said. His eyebrows furrowed.

Steve said, “I didn't mean— You don’t have to come along if— I have money, you could get a ride back to DC, stay with your folks—”

Sam poked him in the bicep, hard. “Man, that serum didn’t go to your brains at _all_ , did it?” he said.

"No," Steve said.

Sam snorted. "At least he's honest."

"Haven't you heard?" said Steve. He smiled. "I'm Captain America."

"I think you're thinking of George Washington, who can't tell lies," Sam said. “Look, _Captain_ _America_ , my friend needs someone to watch his back. You think I'd bail? Hell no, I’m sticking with. Besides,” and his eyes flitted down to the file again, “call it a morbid curiosity. I grew on the same stories the rest of us did. Captain America and Bucky, the heroic avenger and his teen sidekick—”

“Yeah, that was my favorite reading material in Soviet murder school,” said Natasha, snapping her makeup bag shut. “Right above the little red book, and _Torture for Dummies 101_.”

“He—he always hated those comics,” Steve said, staring dumbly at Sam.

But no, that wasn’t right—they’d gone to see a showing of one of the Captain America films, and Bucky had been laughing, smiling, and he’d— “Said he wasn’t Rin Tin Tin; and besides, the costumes were damned stupid. Made us look like a pair of court jesters, what with the—”

“Tights,” Sam supplied helpfully. “Or were you referring to the booty shorts, because man, let me tell you about the _things_ those did to—”

“ _Well_ ,” said Natasha, with a pointed click of her tongue.

Steve rubbed his face so he didn't have to look at either of them.

“In that case, I’ll revise my homecoming gift to Danielle Steel instead," Natasha said. "Assuming we’re all on board with the current objective, though, we do still have a flight to catch. Act natural!”

"Right," Steve said. He frowned at her.

Act natural, Natasha might have told them, but Steve felt like he was going to jitter out of his skin each time the TSA agents gave any of them more than a bored once-over.

Whatever papers Natasha had managed to dredge up did their job, though. The agents scanned them without a second glance, barely even registering Natasha’s cover, who was apparently devoted to cozying up to Sam and batting her eyelashes as soppily as she could pull off while skirting the line of scenery chewing, leaving Steve to fumble getting his wallet and phone out of his pocket and trip over his own shoelaces trying to take his shoes off. Sam didn't say anything to him, just took the file soundlessly and slid it into one of the gray plastic trays next to the contents of his own pockets.

Steve watched the tray vanish into the scanner, then reappear on the other side without a hitch, and closed his eyes for a moment.

Thank God for Natasha and whatever she managed to do to the machines. Steve would have been willing to bet money that she had weapons concealed in those duffel bags.

On the other side of security, Natasha held out one hand expectantly and snapped her fingers.

“Cell phone,” she clarified, when Steve just stared dumbly at her.

Steve handed it over. Natasha slid a fingernail into the seam and popped the back of the case off, produced a hairpin out of nowhere, and began fiddling with the insides of the phone, humming something upbeat under her breath. It took him a moment to realize it was the jaunty tune of _Pack Up Your Troubles_.

“Natasha,” Sam said, wary. “What’s in the bags?”

“Hmm? Oh, the bags.” She dipped her fingernails into the mess of the phone, picking the SIM card out and deftly flicking it into a nearby trash bin without a second thought. “Change of clothes, emergency rations, paperwork, mostly. Couple of ceramics. Cap’s shield’s in mine.”

Sam’s open-mouthed stare matched Steve’s own. “How’d you swing _that_ , lady?”

“Vibranium’s virtually undetectable on scanners. No biggie,” she said, clicking the phone back together and handing it to Steve. “How'd you think the Soldier was able to sneak around undetected after 9/11? Okay, here. Maybe don’t use it for booty calls with your wartime sweetheart’s blonde niece, but it should be all clear now. Stark planted his own bug next to Fury’s. Nasty little thing.”

“Stark _bugged_ me?”

“Oh, he’s had you bugged since 2011, Rogers,” Natasha said. Her tone almost sounded pitying. “Since before you woke up, before they bundled you off to that cabin... They said it was Banner’s personal private vacation spot, didn’t they? Ever wonder why there was a dent the size of the other guy’s fist every couple of feet? Straight through solid steel. They didn’t send you on a vacation, they sent you to a padded cell. This is all more or less out there now, believe it or not. If it weren’t for the fact that I’m crazy fucking paranoid, there’d be a SWAT team surrounding the tarmac right now. Isaiah’s been smoothing it over under the whistle-blower protection, but _that_ cover can only hold so long before someone puts two and two together. I burned a lot of bridges. I don’t have many options to hide anymore. Now, for real, follow me... We really, really wouldn’t want to miss our flight.”

* * *

Real war isn’t a controlled one on one like in a superhero comic, Bucky wrote. It’s dog faced and it’s grim and a lot of the time it involves doing some low-handed shit. They didn’t move me up the ranks because they thought I was spivy. We hurt people and we drop em and we crack jokes about the stiffs.

Sure they’re the enemy but that doesn’t make it much better. We excuse a lot of this jive under the guise of doing the right thing. ~~I remember some of the prisoners we captured in~~ I told you I was shipping out to England, but I lied.

I guess I ain’t ever gonna post this so I might as well tell the truth. They sent my regiment to Casablanca. Sorry I’m not really enjoying myself in Liverpool and charming all the English dames with my killer-diller good looks. They sent us to the middle of the African campaign and we shut up and tied our boots tight and we took it like a buncha eager beavers. So sorry I guess.

Turns out I’m a hell of a marksman. It was easier to stomach if I told myself you wouldn’t be worrying. I know Ma and B. figured I would tell you the truth even if I didn’t tell them, but I guess they didn’t figure how much of a sap I am.

But you know, it gets easier. Killing I mean. I shot a kid in the head the other day. He was in the kraut regiment we captured. I figure he couldn’t have been more than eighteen. If you don’t know em it’s easier not to think of em as people. It didn’t feel like we were people either, not really. They gave us the orders and we followed em. But I kept thinking of the way you looked at me after your Ma died, when you were the same age as some of the boys I’m sharing barracks with. Same age as some of their sweethearts back home.

 ~~I wish I cou~~ ~~Maybe if~~

We’ve been crawling through the mud for a good three days as I write this, and well I barely managed to take enough time to myself for a piss or to shave or write a letter. Best I’ll never send it anyway I guess.

So I was saying we excuse the fucked up shit we do by saying we’re the good guys on the beam! we’re on the right side of the war! history will give us our due! & such. It’s just like kids in the block fights saying well he started it, so it’s okay that I socked him back. Turns out I guess it isn’t always so clear cut.

Well I guess since I’m never gonna show this to anyone I might as well tell you the truth about all of it. I told you I had enlisted. I told you that because it’s what you wanted to hear. The truth is I never wanted to go to war. The truth is I got the conscription letter the day after you got your first 4F.

 ~~That shit at~~ Camp McCoy was like a processing plant — I reckon you already know they didn’t give a damn about who I was (!!). The only way I made sergeant was to work my ass off and not give a shit about the other men. I told you the truth that it was non-combat training in basic. I didn’t tell you the rest because I knew you’d snap your cap at me. (Don't even try to argue sweetheart you know it as well as I do.)

Guess that’s the way the world works, you know? You wanted nothing more than to be able to serve, and you’re stuck at home. I didn’t want to leave you, and I got the draft. That’s the fucking truth of it all. The only thing that keeps me going is knowing you’re all right back home.

* * *

Steven Grant Rogers was, by all accounts, a troublemaker. The contemporary accounts of his childhood paint a picture of a scrappy little thing growing up in the aftermath of the First World War, the effects of—and the subsequent repeal of—Prohibition, the Great Depression, and the home front of World War II. As is the case with every hero of history, the story his legacy became glosses over the uglier, more complicated aspects of a childhood spent in poverty, fighting to survive in a world hell-bent on the opposite. First hospitalized in 1921 at age three with acute bronchitis, Rogers’s sickly childhood is well-known to his biographers, who tend to sketch a portrait of a man fighting against all odds to help serve his country. What these stories fail to acknowledge, however, is the multiple attempted felonies—falsifying information on papers in order to join the US Army is a felony charge, and Rogers is known to have attempted to enlist under false names no fewer than five different times before being selected for Project Rebirth. His career as a rule-flaunter did not end there: Rogers, originally serving with the United Service Organizations (USO) as a morale-boosting performer to help the war effort, commandeered a plane designed by Howard Stark, of _Stark Industries_ fame, to fly behind enemy lines in an—ultimately successful—attempt to rescue a group of POWs. It is this characterization of Steve Rogers that the history books miss, that the politicians ignore, that the civilians forget when walking past his monument in Prospect Park.

The statue is an amusingly fitting portrayal—seven feet tall, larger-than-life, emblazoned with a banner reading CAPT. STEVEN G. ROGERS | “CAPTAIN AMERICA” | 1918-1945, it would be difficult to find a more appropriate representation of Rogers’s legacy. The statue itself, commissioned in 1967 by SHIELD founders Margaret (“Peggy”) Carter and Howard Stark, the same year the first of many Project Rebirth files were declassified, features Rogers standing on a snow-white pedestal, iconographic shield held aloft in one hand. This portrayal of Rogers, as is the custom, shows him as he was after the results of Project Rebirth and the legendary serum that changed him into the hero of the Second World War; he stands alone, without the crack squadron that accompanied him on the filmed and publicized takedowns, without Carter herself under his arm, without friends or family or facial expression. The carved stone visage shows a symbol, not a man. The shield—that brilliant piece of red-white-and-blue metonymy—is the only part of the statue to be depicted in full color.

[“The Hero Who Sacrificed Everything: The History of Steve Rogers.”](https://time.com/3474908/hero-sacrificed-everything-history-steve-rogers/) Rebekah Abramczyk. Originally published in _TIME_ magazine (2007).

* * *

The flight was long and dull. Sam napped, his head lolling against Steve’s shoulder; Natasha, who Steve had never seen sleep, pulled out her own set of folders with a grim expression and got to work. She caught him looking after a few minutes, and glanced up with a red Sharpie cap between her teeth.

“Worf on your own thinh,” she scolded.

Steve ducked his head instead of apologizing.

He didn't think he could stand to look at the photograph of Bucky trapped behind the ice-blue glass, eyes closed in sleep or death or something worse, so he flipped past a few pages in Cyrillic until he got to something that was mostly in English. It was printed on thin paper; Steve lifted the sheet hesitantly, afraid to tear it.

The letter was dated September of 2001.

** Одеса, Україна: Проект Агент. **

My dear esteemed Karpov—

What wonderful news to hear that our American friends are willing to buy!

It is more than we had ever hoped for that they would be so willing to place the world back in the grasp of those who know best, particularly considering the fight they put up only so few years ago.

Vaska, I could hardly contain my excitement when I first saw the rumors that the Agent had been rediscovered in Komsomolets Island. We can only hope that our lovely counterparts across the ocean will know how to channel the media before they can leap upon such a bounteous bout of prosperity like so many vultures.

There is a limited window to seize control of this particular narrative. I fear that we will lose the opportunity to realize the glorious dream HYDRA had sown upon our inception, particularly if we continue to lack access to the Agent. I trust that you are capable of understanding what I would suggest, were I in your position. It is unfortunate that I am not; but then again, time makes examples of us all, and perhaps, my dear Karpov, this is your chance to show us your abilities.

I have heard from—and how strange it still is, to see “little Sanya” in such a position of power!—that Operation TOSKA is full steam ahead. A shame that Stark was so disposable; were it not for his demise, his brilliant technology could have aided our mission quite nicely. As it stands, we will rely on Bouazizi to carry out the objective. If he fails, we will have no choice but to bring in our own weapons...

Yours—  
Darya Aleksandrovna Kuznetsova

Steve looked up, the paper clutched in his hands. Natasha was watching him, this time, curled up in her seat with her head tilted to one side.

“This letter, it—this isn’t about... him.”

“No,” Natasha agreed. “Karpov and the others never called him _Agent_. The Asset, when he was in American hands, yes; cолдат, when he was in ours, yes. These are about... something else.”

Steve leveled his gaze at her. “Soldier. Is that what _you_ called him?”

Natasha smiled, but there was no humor in it.

“No,” she said. “I mostly just called him _зима_.”

* * *

The plane touched down four hours later in Vologda, and Natasha hustled them out of the airport and into a taxi, which she directed towards a hotel; it was a ten-minute ride from the Vologda Airport to the center of the city itself. While she argued in rapid Russian with the lobby clerk, Sam leaned in to whisper, “Why d’you reckon we’re here?”

Steve shrugged. “Either a base or intel,” he said. He hadn’t dared look through the duffel bags on the flight, for fear of what he might find there. Bucky’s file was tucked under his jacket, against his chest, a comforting weight.

Sam laughed, suddenly. “Man,” he said, “it’s like she keeps secrets for a living or somethin’.”

Natasha walked back over then, carrying two room keys and a brochure in Cyrillic. “Here’s where we’re going,” she said, holding up the brochure enticingly. “But first we’re going up to the room, so I can shower, and then we’re going to the dining hall, so I can eat, and _then_ we’re going to check out the wonders of the область like a pair of туристы and their native guide.”

“Oblast?” Sam echoed.

Natasha clicked her tongue.

“Chop, chop. Hot water and those little fruit trays,” she said, waving them towards the elevators.

The room was a double bed with a cushioned chair, where Natasha unceremoniously dumped the duffel bags—one of them, Steve noted wryly, landed with an audible _clunk_ of metal—and tossed her pumps onto the bed nearest to the window.

Sam flopped down onto the other bed with a huff, then groaned as he rolled over. “Christ, I’d forgotten what it felt like to sit somewhere that wasn’t those tiny-ass airplane seats. Leave me here, Rogers. Here? Is where I am going to live and die now.”

The shower turned on in the background, and Natasha’s head popped around the corner, her hair falling loosely around her shoulders. “Oh, if someone calls my phone, don’t answer,” she said, then, “there’s snacks in the bag with the blue patch on it,” then, “but don’t eat the Alenka or I’ll eat your face.”

“You sure know how to pick ’em,” Sam muttered, but he sat up and grabbed one of the duffel bags, tugging it towards him and unzipping it. “Found anything interesting in that folder of yours yet?”

“I—maybe,” Steve said guiltily. He slid the file out from under his jacket and flipped it open to the page with the letter. “Does the name Vasily Karpov ring a bell to _you_?”

“Nah, but that’s why we have—” Sam rummaged in his jeans pocket for a moment before fishing out his phone. “—and aha! Huh, well, guy’s got a Wiki page. And about a million Google news alerts, if that means anything.”

He held the phone out to Steve, and Steve took it.

vasily karpov   
About 670,000,000 results (0.58 seconds)

“Thanks,” Steve said dryly.

He glanced over at Sam, who raised his eyebrows innocently. Sam was chewing on something that looked suspiciously like Natasha’s forbidden chocolates.

“Woah, hey, how ’m I supposed to know you know how to google something? Same age as my Nana, remember.”

“And don’t you forget it, son,” Steve said.

Sam said, "Eugh."

Steve thought about smiling. He turned back to the phone.

SHIELD data leak reveals long-hidden information on   
potential double agents within high-ranking…

CNN International – 11 hours ago

Following the seismic event of the massive leak of   
previously confidential government documents released   
to the public by SHIELD operative Natasha Romanoff   
(“Black Widow”), the… **Vasily** **Karpov** , Alexander Pierce,   
Josef Stern, Jasper Sitwell, and others as HYDRA   
operatives within the ranks of…

Three dead, others in critical condition following George   
Washington Bridge shootout

The New York Times – 7 days ago

Drivers on the George Washington Bridge on Friday   
encountered a shootout between two hostile groups,   
one of… with **Vasily** **Karpov** being namedropped in the   
documents subpoenaed…

Former RuAF Colonel **Vasily** **Karpov** among names listed   
in classified government documents discussing Winter…

CBS News – 17 minutes ago

The recently declassified SHIELD files contain decades   
of government intel concerning everything from MK-Ultra   
to Area… **Vasily** **Karpov** , listed as one of the ‘handlers’ of   
the unknown weapon referred to prior to 1991 as the   
‘Winter Soldier,’ when…

“So he was HYDRA,” Sam said.

He was leaning over Steve’s back to read the headlines, his chin on Steve’s shoulder. Steve snorted at that comment and kept scrolling. Sam huffed, “Yeah, yeah, I know, who _isn’t_ at this point, and all that. But this guy—he was high up. Right? CBS called him a ‘handler,’ whatever that means.”

“It means you haven’t actually read any of the documents I so graciously leaked,” Natasha said, appearing around the doorway in a fluffy white towel, her hair bedraggled and clinging to her head. “Wilson, you’re up next, then you, Rogers. Oh... Wilson?”

Sam’s head snapped up. “Yes ma’am?”

“You’re buying me as many Alenka chocolates as I want for the rest of the trip. On _your_ dime.”

“Yes ma’am,” said Sam, and escapes into the bathroom.

Natasha settled on the bed across from Steve, still wrapped in her towel. With her hair down and still wet, the makeup washed from her face, she looked both younger and older than she normally seemed. There were hints of dark circles under her eyes, Steve noticed. Her cheekbones were dotted with pale freckles.

“File,” she said, and held out her hand expectantly.

Steve obediently passed it over, and Natasha hugged the folder to her chest, briefly.

“So. You want to know the real reason we’re here, don’t you? Because you’re smart enough to figure out it’s not to tour the riveting sights to be seen in the—” Natasha picked up the brochure again, holding it out like a threat. “Lace Museum.”

КРУЖЕВОЙ МУЗЕЙ, the brochure announced proudly, displaying a picture of a squat, square building in the middle of a concrete and stone plaza. Natasha tossed it aside.

“I was always more partial to knitting, to tellya the truth,” Steve said, “and yeah, it’s about time you started telling me what the hell is really going on here.”

He wanted to trust Natasha. He wanted to trust her so badly it hurt to think about.

Besides Sam, she was the only person he thought he could truly rely on. Besides Sam, she was the only person he knew for sure wasn't HYDRA, simply because it wasn't her style. He would rather have her feeding him prettily cooked-up lies than Fury or Hill or, God forbid, Coulson.

She was the only SHIELD operative he trusted, and she wasn’t even SHIELD. Steve thought, there was probably a connection there.

“Vologda,” Natasha said, crossing her legs and settling her hands in her lap. “Along the Kholmogory highway. Home of a fuck load of Yak-40s headed to everywhere from Moskva to Kichmengsky Gorodok. Easy air access, not too popular... perfect spot to hide something.”

“Or someone.”

Natasha inclined her head.

“You think he’s here?”

“If he was, he’s certainly not now. Steve, I know you think he’s still your friend—”

“He _is_ ,” Steve snapped.

“—but he’s not the person you remember. He’s dangerous, he’s unpredictable, and the only person who could really control him died without a hand on his leash. He’s not going to be eager to come in, and he’s not going to want to listen to _me_...andthat’s assuming he didn’t get wiped, _again_. You think you know what we’re dealing with? You weren’t there when they woke him back up, and each time it was like waking a child. He was always so confused, at first; he’d reach for me, touch my hair, my face, marvel at it... He used to say I was the only thing that kept him from putting a bullet in his head as soon as he figured out what they were doing to us... but that wasn’t true, because he had every opportunity to leave, and he didn’t budge. Oh, he tried, all right... even got as far as Red Hook, one time, before they brought down heaven and hell and all the rest to get him back on the grid. It goes deeper than micro-chipping, Rogers, they get their fist inside your brain and squeeze until it’s all twisted up and wrung dry of everything, everything that makes you _real_ , little fucking Skin Horse, they take everything that makes you—”

“Fuck, Natasha!” He was on his feet before he realized he’d decided to move, anger burning in his chest and throat like a living thing. “You think I don’t know he’s different? You think I’m expecting he’ll just walk in the door one day like it’s fucking—1938, like none of this ever happened? I don’t _care_ , I don’t care _what_ he did, this isn’t about fixing him, it’s about—”

“Saving him? Because what the hell are you gonna do if he doesn’t want to be saved, you ever think about that? You think I didn’t try to get us out of that frozen fucking cage? It’s not going to be easy, it’s not some magic trick where you snap your fingers and he falls into your arms like your old sweetheart come home from the front lines—”

And she didn't know, she _couldn’t_ know, because they hadn’t told anyone—not even Peggy, not even Rebecca when she’d covered for them—

But there was something settling white-hot behind his tongue, like he’d swallowed molten glass.

“I’m not you,” Steve hissed, if only to get her to shut up, shut the hell up _—_

"Oh, really," said Natasha frostily. "And here I was thinking we were _двойники_."

“I’m not _you_ , and you don’t know a damn thing about us, or—did he even shoot you, or were you lying about that too?”

"Steve," she started to say, but he was already moving forward and yanking the stupid fluffy hotel towel away from her hip. The skin there was smooth and still damp from the shower, no trace of a scar.

Bye bye bikinis, Steve thought, and took a step back so he didn’t do something he couldn't fix later.

Natasha’s voice was low and ugly, the kind of voice he’d only heard her use on targets before. “You’re not entitled to my life story any more than I’m entitled to yours, and if you think otherwise, then this little road trip is dead in the water before we leave this room. I will work with you, I will bring you my intel and my connections and my... my fucking _skill set_ , but I will not be treated like shit just because your boyfriend took a vacation to the other side of the Iron Curtain for a couple decades. Now. Sit. _Down_.”

Steve sat down.

“That’s better,” she said, and smiled, but it wasn’t kind. “You want to know how I know that Vologda is the perfect place to hide someone? It wasn’t because the Soldier was being kept here; it was because _I_ was. Oh, and there were others, of course... Lenotchka and Marusya and Zosya and the rest of us, but I don’t know what happened to them, I only know what happened to me."

Natasha tilted her head back, considering. "I wasn’t the first Black Widow, nor was I the only, and I wasn’t the first Natalia Romanova... but they chose the name well, didn’t they? Oh, Romanoviy, that was us all right, and if we were going to fall, we fell _hard_. They kept us here because they trained us here, and when they decided we were ready, they cut us loose and set us free. Ghost stories, all of us. You can take the girl out of the Motherland, but that doesn't erase anything I did. What he did, either."

Steve opened his mouth to say something, but he didn't have anything to say. Natasha leered at him.

"What, you never really considered what it actually meant that SHIELD's pet Soviet Petrushka puppet was the darling of the KGB first? Of course, it's the FSB now, all neat and tidy and and respectable. But back then it was just a clusterfuck. And then, well—”

She waved one hand, dismissive. “And then the wall came down, and we were scattered all over the world, and I left Russia.”

“Nat,” he said.

“I put a bullet in my handler’s head when he told me to find the others, and I went to Kharkov first,” she said, as though he hadn’t spoken. “Found a new handler and started over like I’d never been burned, because that was how we did things. I found Yelena, later—holed up in Kyiv like she'd gone native. I ran into her in the Besarabska Ploscha along Kreshchatyk, isn't that funny? Meeting up with an old friend at the Besarabka, catching up while selecting groceries, window shopping and swanning about. And I should have killed her. I was supposed to have killed her, but I didn’t, and then she blew up the building with herself inside it, and the next thing I knew I was in a hospital bed with a fucking priest praying for my immortal soul.”

“Natasha,” he tried, but she ignored him again.

“We’re in Vologda because there are people I know here in Vologda, and it’s easier to stroll into Russia if I go through a passage I already know isn’t compromised. You and Wilson are going to sit tight in this hotel room until I come back tomorrow evening, and then we are going to pack up our bags and head just outside of the city, and then I am going to tell you where we are going to go next. And if you’re wondering why I never told you about this shit, it’s because of that look on your face right now—you don’t even know if I’m telling the truth, and your heart is still breaking, because that’s how they fucking get you, Rogers. You _give_ _a_ _shit_ , and that’s not something you can afford to do if you want to stay in this line of work. So you’re going to stay in this hotel room and let Wilson teach you how to play Mario Kart, and I’m going to go visit an old friend and hopefully come back without missing a finger or two.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’ve never lost a finger. I don’t think I could grow it back, though. Not really something I want to test out, I think.”

“Natasha,” Steve said, because he didn’t know what else to say. “I—believe you. I do. And I trust you, but if this is gonna work, you need to trust _me_. I’m not saying you have to tell me your whole... tragic childhood, and God knows there’ve been enough books written about mine, but I don’t want you to lie to me about why we’re here. And,” he gestured to her side, “don’t lie to me about being shot.”

Her mouth twitched. “Oh, I didn’t lie about that, _kotenok_. Think about it—when’s the last time one of _your_ wounds left a scar after a day or two? Your little soldatchka boy isn't a fucking amateur. Zima put a slug right through me and I still get journalists asking for my skincare routine like I’m the CEO of Stark’s little Playboy empire, not Potts and her fancy-pants herbal face masks. I'll admit, doing that little makeup job to win you over was fun, that's for sure. But no, no. I don't scar, just like you. That doesn't mean I wasn't shot."

Natasha quirked her eyebrows, looking suddenly playful. "Think Maria and Isaiah would throw me out on my ass if I told the press the truth about how it was actually a cocktail of uppers and the S3 concoction that kept me looking spry as a freshly fucked daisy?”

“Like you’d let that stop you from saying it, if you wanted to,” Steve said.

It wasn't like there was anything substantial left of SHIELD, anyway. Steve took a deep breath and forced himself to relax before the tension in his neck and arms gave him a migraine.

Sam choose to stick his head around the bathroom door at that moment, taking in the tableau with a crease between his eyebrows that means he didn't particularly want to know what had just happened. “All right, I didn’t bring my pants in here with me, so cover your eyes lest your purity be tarnished, or your masculinity be impugned, or whatever,” he said, and headed towards the duffel that Natasha had designated as the spare clothes bag.

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” Steve said.

He said it without thinking, then winced when Natasha’s eyes sharpened eagerly.

“Okay, now this I have to hear,” she purred, leaning forward. “Was this before or after we took out little day trip to Jersey, Cap?”

Steve closed his eyes and tipped his head up towards the ceiling. “Before,” he said, to get it over with, “and before you ask, that’s not why I kept turning down all those dates you tried to throw at me.”

Natasha made a truly undignified snorting noise and flopped back onto the bed. Steve chanced opening his eyes, then snapped them shut again so he wouldn't get a glimpse of too much skin where her towel had ridden up her thigh.

“Almost a century old and you’ve still got more game than either of us," Natasha said, gleeful. "Incredible.”

“ _You_ kissed _me_ ,” Steve protested, ignoring Sam’s loud and unabashed laughter. “And with... with Sam, it was—a mistake.”

“Now, hold up,” Sam interrupted, “that ain’t what you were saying when I had my—”

Natasha’s snorting had turned into wheezing; Steve halfheartedly debated letting her choke to death on her own laughter.

“—and then afterwards, we _both_ decided we would be better as friends—”

“He bolted,” Sam informed the giggling lump of towels that was Natasha, “like a damn rabbit—I go to make breakfast the next morning cause my Momma raised a gentleman, and he panics, starts telling me he’s really sorry, he had a great time, a _great_ time! But he has to go, so of course I try to get him to stay... I mean, it’s Captain fuckin’ America, and he’s scared to death of commitment,” Sam said, and Steve looked up at the ceiling and contemplated melting into the floor and never returning to a solid state. “So I tell him I made breakfast, and he just says, ‘I don’t... eat... breakfast,’ and he’s out the door like a shot... ka-blam!”

Natasha rolled over onto her stomach, buried her head in one of the hotel pillows, and laughed until there were tears coming out of her eyes.

“All right,” Steve said, resigned. “I’m gonna go shower. Hooligans,” he told them, shaking his head, which set them both off again, and he closed the bathroom door on the sound of Natasha’s quiet little hiccuping noises as she tried to get her breath back.

* * *

In the shower, he grabbed one of the little bottles at random and scrubbed his skin viciously, like he could peel off the years and step out looking like he did in 1939 again. It wasn’t that he hadn’t resigned himself to his place in the 21st century; it’s just—when he thought about Bucky—

Steve let his head fall against the shower wall with a _thunk_.

He couldn't go back, and he didn't want to go back, because he would have done the same damn thing if he’d known.

Maybe it was selfish, maybe it was just stupid. He didn’t tell Peggy the coordinates, and he didn’t try to jump; he kept his eyes open and watched as the nose of the plane broke through the first soft wave into the ocean, and thought about how it had only been eighteen days (—not even a month, that’s how long I lasted, he wants to say, to the ghost whose face is resting in a photograph on the hotel bed, to the ghost who’s somewhere in the world wearing his best friend’s face; that’s how long I lasted without you—), and if he could change the way the story went, well—

He though about kissing Natasha on the escalator, her hands holding him in place, her body pressed up against his, small and fierce and kinetic. He thought about letting Sam fuck him, about that glorious half a day where he didn’t have to be Captain America or Steve Rogers or anyone, really, he could just be some random jogger from Dupont Circle who’d bumped into Sam on an early-morning run... a fellow vet, maybe...

Sam, who still had the dust and blood of Afghanistan in his pocket. Sam, who understood why it wasn’t something to talk about, not when there were other things to be doing with hands and mouths, and Sam—

—and he knew that look on Sam’s face when Steve had asked about the picture on the nightstand, unwilling to come between Sam and some imaginary partner. _Nobody_ , Sam had said, snapping the frame face-down against the wood, _least not anymore_ , and Steve—just— _knew_.

He knew what it was like to be in love with a dead man, and still carry the weight of all that love and all that grief and all that pain, wherever you went. It hung around his throat, tucked underneath his shirt like his dog tags; it attached itself to his ankle and tried to pull him into the deep end.

And now Bucky was alive, or something close enough to it, and there was no way in hell Steve was letting him go again.

He'd go down with Bucky if Bucky asked for it; he'd go down like a fucking submarine without a second thought if that was what Bucky wanted. Tie their ankles together to the concrete slab and jump, without even thinking about what would come next. Because that's the thing: Steve wouldn't _have_ to think about any of it. He's already thought about it enough for several lifetimes, even longer than what he's got under his belt. He'd go down like a lead balloon if it was what Bucky needed, crash and burn. Fuck Captain America; Steve Rogers was nothing without Bucky Barnes.

The water had gotten cold, he realized, and just as he realized it, he was laughing. The noise sounded raw, ragged; like a sob, too loud and too harsh in the porcelain of the shower stall, and he set his fist against the wall and bit down on the skin of his wrist so he could stop making those horrible noises.

Of course he wasn’t going to kill himself. Not while Bucky was still alive.

He’d said _the end of the line_ , and he’d meant it. If he died, if he _could_ die, it would be by Bucky’s hand, and no one else’s.

If he could rewrite their story, he would have died on that table in Kreischberg, stripped down to the bone and sinew while Bucky lay shaking in his arms. If he could rewrite their story, he never would have woken up from the ice.

If he could rewrite their story, they would both be long dead, curled around each other in some unmarked grave, lost in the frozen landscape of the Eastern Alpine range.

Anything. Anything, as long as they were together.

Steve allowed himself a moment to breathe, washing the memories down the drain, and then he set down the little bottle of whatever type of soap шампунь is, and turned off the water.

* * *

 _ Look, right from the start, everybody who encountered Captain America KNEW he was great. All they had to do was LOOK at him! He was a walking, talking American flag.  _ _ Other superheroes of that day had made their film debuts tossing automobiles around or swinging from rooftops or burning through steel doors. Captain America? HE slugged Adolf Hitler squarely in the jaw. _

Introduction to the thirtieth anniversary re-release of the 1954 radio serial, “The Captain America Adventure Program,” narrated by Arlene French, the original voice of “Betty Carver.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sources and references round-up can be found [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pBDOfZDeL7HyiRrvYYm8Ue0pe44g9kX8xBj4egtBq7A/edit?usp=sharing).


	4. That foreign country

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for **this** chapter: there is one scene of what could be considered dub-con, depending on your parameters (the person initiating does not actually want anything sexual, but is treating sex as a replacement for intimacy, and the other person involved does not want anything sexual at all, but is not seriously bothered by the initiation thereof; the situation is resolved without serious incident, and is addressed within the text). If that particularly squicks you out, proceed with the appropriate level of caution.

* * *

** TOP TRENDING WORLDWIDE: **

  1. [#wintersoldierfiles](https://twitter.com/hashtag/wintersoldierfiles)
  2. [#HYDRA](https://twitter.com/hashtag/HYDRA)
  3. [#SHIELDgate](https://twitter.com/hashtag/SHIELDgate)
  4. [#whoisblackwidow](https://twitter.com/hashtag/whoisblackwidow)
  5. [#FIFAWC14](https://twitter.com/hashtag/FIFAWC14)



* * *

“Annexation of Alaska and Hawaii, 1959,” Sam said. “That on your list?”

“What I don’t get is why they added those, but not the territories,” said Steve. “Puerto Rico—”

“Man, don’t ask me to get inside the heads of the government,” Sam said, looking alarmed. “Anyone tell you about emotional labor yet?” At Steve’s confused look, he relented, “I’m joking, dude. Hey, tell me something I wouldn’t know about the forties.”

“Um,” Steve said, momentarily blanking out. “Uh... tennis balls. Weren’t yellow.”

Sam blinked. “I’ve never played tennis in my life, man. What color were they?”

“Black. Or white,” Steve said. “Used to depend on—the background of the courts, I think? I never played tennis. Or any sport, really. Could barely walk, most days, and then after, well—” He shrugged. “Didn’t have much time in between dancing with the USO girls and knocking out Nazis.”

“And now we’re hunting down Nazis, but I don’t see no USO girls,” Sam said. “Unless Natasha’s got some hidden in her magical duffel bags.”

“Hi _lar_ ious,” Natasha said from the bathroom, where she had been fiddling with some minuscule device she steadfastly refused show either of them. Steve could hear the servo motors whirring faintly, but Sam hadn't commented on it, so it was probably just enhanced hearing. “Rogers, tell him about the time with tiramisu.”

Sam looked like he was caught somewhere between intrigued and horrified. “I don’t wanna know, do I?”

“Let’s just say someone didn’t tell me how much sugar was in tiramisu before they made me try it.”

“Guilty as charged,” Natasha yelled over the muffled sound of the bathroom sink covering up whatever else she was doing. “But in my defense, his face when he tasted the stuff was absolutely priceless. Almost as funny as when he accidentally tasered himself.”

“Tasers were after my time,” Steve reminded the room at large. “You kids and your—your goddamn newfangled toys.”

“Oh, God,” Sam said, and put his face in his hands.

* * *

ROMANOVA: You’re not going to put me in a prison. [...] You’re not going to put any of us in a prison. You know why?

WENDHAM: Please, enlighten us.

ROMANOVA: Because you need us. Yes, the world is a vulnerable place, and yes, we help make it that way. But we’re also the ones best qualified to defend it. So if you want to arrest me, arrest me. You’ll know where to find me.

Excerpt — stenographer’s record.

_United States v. Romanova, 639 U.S. 58, 2014_.

* * *

Eventually Sam managed to muddle his way through the setup menu for Russian Netflix on the hotel television, then proceeded to educate Steve thoroughly on what he thought were the best and most seminal pieces of cinema from the past century.

Steve sat on the bed next to Sam with his back against the headboard and thought about going to see the black-and-white newsreels in wartime theatres, the larger-than-life propaganda films featuring his own image on the screen. Sam scrolled through his phone while they watched, and Steve didn't tell him about how he and Bucky used to sit quietly with their backs against the same tree, Bucky meticulously picking apart and cleaning his Johnson sharpshooter, and listen to _The Kate Smith Hour_ on the radio, because Bucky was so hung up on Abbott and Costello that he'd drag Steve along to every available showing. He remembered going to see _Buck Privates_ in one of the wartime theatres, sat in the back with Bucky, hidden in the shadows, and for once no one had recognized them. They were still in public, and it was still risky and stupid as hell, but halfway through the movie Bucky had turned his head and pressed his mouth against the curve between Steve’s neck and shoulder and bit down, just once, before sitting up again.

It hadn’t been much, really. Only a simple, quick gesture after months of being sat next to each other and cleaning weapons and listening to the radio and deliberately not touching. But it was still enough for Steve’s whole body to feel electric, lit up, and he’d felt like he was glowing all the way back to camp. For the rest of the day, he had imagined he could still feel the hot sharp shape of Bucky's mouth on his skin.

They watched _I Love Lucy_ because Steve still hadn’t crossed it off his list. The notebook he'd been working through when he first met Sam had filled up long ago, and he just hadn’t bothered to get a new one.

But watching the show was comforting, somehow. Watching things in color still made his eyes feel like they should be hurting, sometimes.

He thought about sneaking out of school with Bucky, before Bucky’s Pa got real sick and the Depression hit and Bucky had to keep up his image of a model student.

Back in 1929, sneaking over to the Rockaways with Bucky had felt like the dirtiest, most thrilling secret in the world.

That was how things went—history took something small and blew it up beyond all recognition. What was he supposed to say? That, back in 1937, seeing Bucky in his undershirt while he threw chopped vegetables into Steve's Ma's old pot was as sexy as though someone had stripped him down and laid him out on a platter? That, back in 1944, the quick brush of Bucky's teeth against his trapezius was enough to set him alight for weeks on end? That, back in 1925, his nickel and Bucky's nickel together could buy thirty-six pages of a comic that could entertain them for the entire afternoon? He'd called something _the sixty-four dollar question_ , once, back in the beginning, before he learned better than to try to say certain things; Tony had laughed and make some snide comment about inflation, and even Bruce, trying to be reasonable, had said, _you mean, the sixty-four thousand dollar question_ , but that hadn't been what Steve meant. History took something small and blew it up beyond all recognition. The future didn't have dymaxion cars and it didn't have malevolent robot overlords and it didn't have Bucky.

Sometimes Bucky would have brought along a pocket full of candies, or newspaper clippings, or interesting photographs from the home magazines that he’d snatched when his Ma hadn’t been looking, and he’d show them to Steve like it was no big thing—tiny pieces of color, tiny pieces of something different that he could stick together to make a collage. It was easy to remember the times Bucky would bring him a white paper bag with sticky licorice inside, an extra piece of soda bread, a shiny red apple with only one little bruise on it.

Steve didn’t ever ask where Bucky found these things, because he didn’t ever want to know; he didn’t mind the stealing, not really, it wasn't anything more than any of them did, during the Depression.

But he liked imagining that Bucky could just make things appear when he wanted them, like a genie from one of the stories in _1001 Arabian Nights_. Rebecca had received a copy of that book for her tenth birthday, a twenty five-cent paperback already worn shabby after the first year what with how much she read and reread it, and Bucky practically had the whole thing memorized. He would bring Steve hard toffees and tell him stories about magic and mystery and brave heroes who fought monsters and clever dames with tricks up their sleeves.

They would sit on the steps outside the tenement building and kick the soles of their shoes against each other every time they read something interesting.

Sometimes, Steve remembered, when they were older, he and Bucky would sit together on Bucky’s mattress, reading ten-cent comic books— _Batman_ _&_ _Robin_ or _Hop_ _Harrigan_ or _Dick_ _Tracy_ or _Popeye_ or even _Lady_ _Satan_ , even though Bucky only really liked that one for the outfits the girls were wearing—Bucky would read the dialogue out loud, with Steve resting his head in his lap, and Steve would trace the lines of Bucky’s ankle with his fingertips until Bucky gave in and kissed him, quick, before going back to the comic books, cheeks flushed.

That had been before the Depression blindsided the entire country, before Bucky had to spend long hours out looking for work that wasn't there, and Steve had been barely scraping by on watered-down soup and half-moldering potato skins and dry bread if he'd gotten particularly lucky.

And then his Ma had died, and they had both grown up way too fast.

“Hey, man,” Sam said. “Where’d you go?”

Steve blinked. The television screen was paused; his throat felt like it had been stepped on. “Lower East Side. The Heights,” he said, nonsensically, without looking at Sam.

Sam nodded, like he understood. “You looked kind of like you—” he started, and Steve leaned over and kissed him before he could finish his sentence.

For a single perfect moment, he didn’t have to think at all, and then Sam gently pushed him back.

“Steve,” Sam said, so soft, and Steve tried to kiss him again so he didn’t have to hear the gentleness in Sam’s voice, “Steve, you—mmph, c’mon, man, you don’t actually want this.”

“I might,” Steve said into the collar of Sam’s shirt. The fabric was rough against his skin.

He tried to kiss Sam again, and Sam let him, this time; Steve got a hand underneath Sam’s shirt and the other fumbling with the front of Sam’s jeans. He started to shift downwards, then thought, no, that wouldn't work—he needed Sam to shut _up_ , to stop being so sympathizing and understanding in that infuriating way he had, how Sam always _got_ it; he needed—he just—needed—

They had done this before, instead of talking. Old familiar ground. Circles and circles. Steve removed his mouth, but put a hand over Sam’s mouth instead, holding it there while he tried to open Sam’s fly one-handed.

Sam’s eyebrows dipped inward, then he said, “Okay, okay, stop.”

Steve hesitated, and Sam said, again, “ _Stop_ ,” and Steve sat up and let go of him.

“You don’t want this,” Sam said firmly.

“Sorry,” Steve said, on reflex.

“Don’t—you don’t have to apologize,” Sam said. He pushed himself back, away from the edge of the bed. “It’s not like I’m not attracted to you, bud, but I also know when I’m being used as a substitute for somethin’, and I’m not in the mood.”

“Sorry.”

“What did I _just_ say—”

Steve bit down on his tongue to stop another apology from escaping. He thought, if he bit all the way through his tongue, maybe he would feel something then. Maybe if he bit off his own fingers, they would grow back; maybe they wouldn’t. He never really tried to find his own limits.

“Dude, as flattering as it is that Captain America wants to suck my dick, I just don’t really think now is the time,” Sam said. He reached out and patted the side of Steve’s neck clumsily. “Look, hey, we don’t have to watch _I Love Lucy_ , okay? We can watch... fuckin’... _Die Hard_ , if you want, I don’t give a shit. Just... I know you don’t want this, and you’ll regret it if we actually do anything, and you’re my friend, man, I’m not gonna do that to you.”

“Sam,” Steve said, and stopped, pressing his teeth down on his tongue until it hurt, because if he opened his mouth any further he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from breaking apart.

Sam understood what he meant, though—Sam, who always understood—

"C'mon, come over here," Sam said, and pulled Steve closer, settled them both so Steve was curled against Sam’s chest like he was a foot shorter and a hundred pounds lighter again, grabbing onto his shirt. Ninety pounds soaking wet, Bucky used to say; he used to be able to pick Steve up and carry him, Steve clinging to his front like a monkey, all around the tenement—

Steve squeezed his eyes shut and turned his face into Sam’s shirt. There was that familiar screaming litany running through his mind (—he’s dead he’s dead he’s dead he’s dead he’s dead and you couldn’t save him, you didn’t save him, not the first time and not this time either), over and over, and he couldn’t do anything except hold onto Sam as Sam held him until the shaking stopped.

“Shh,” Sam said, rubbing one hand along the curve of his spine, “shh, c’mon, it’s okay to—whatever you’re feeling, it’s okay.”

“When you lost Riley,” Steve said, and felt Sam tense up underneath him. “When you lost Riley,” he soldiered on, “how—how long did it take, before—”

Sam huffed. “Man, I wish I had a clean-cut answer to give, y’know? Like, six months and I could stop my throat closing up every time I smelled that stupid fucking generic Axe he always used, eight months and I didn’t have a panic attack going down the stairs because what if I fell and the house exploded, twelve months and I didn’t black out when someone asked if I ever planned to get back in—it isn’t that simple, and it isn’t that easy, and I can’t tell you it’ll ever go away, because it hasn’t for me, not yet. But it does get better. It’s hell, and it’s the fucking worst, but I promise you it _does_ get better.”

“I’ve been,” and Steve swallowed around the ache in his throat, “trying, for seventy years, and it hasn’t—”

“If it helps,” Sam said. One of his hands was still rubbing small circles on the space between Steve’s shoulder blades, like he was encouraging wings to grow. “If it helps, man, I’m here in this shitty hotel with its shitty Netflix in the middle of Fuck Off, Russia because we’re on a mission to _fix things_ , and also to fuck shit up and make some Nazis wish they’d never been born, and that’s about as cathartic as I can imagine, honest.”

Steve tried to laugh; the sound that came out was more like a dying cat, but Sam didn’t comment on it, because Sam was the fucking best. “I’m sorry, I’m—going to pieces like this, and not even considering that—you can’t get him back, can you?”

Sam’s arms tightened around him. He sighed. “I’ve had a while to get used to the idea,” he said. “It doesn’t get easier—that make any sense? It doesn’t get any easier, but it gets better, and that’s what I’m holding out for. Besides, I don’t know what kind of asshole you think I am, but I’m not gonna sabotage your shit just because I’m mad my own shit didn’t work out. Nah, I’m selfish that way,” he said, and exhaled heavily. “It’s shitty of me, sure, but in a way I’m glad it was just—bam. Just like that. I wouldn’t want to be in your position. No offense, man.”

“No, no, I get it. I really do,” Steve said. He unpeeled himself from Sam’s shirt; Sam graciously didn’t mention the damp patches or the way Steve’s eyes must still have been red and swollen. “I’m... I’m selfish too. I wouldn’t want to be in _your_ position.”

Sam laughed, loud and surprised. “What a pair of fuck-ups we are, huh?”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Thanks for not letting me suck your dick.”

Sam cracked up for real at that, bending over and wheezing. “God, if I could tell my buddies from boot camp about what a mouth you have, I’d be a laughingstock, but you—just—fuck, man. You’re _good_ at the whole personas thing, aren’t you?”

Steve twitches one shoulder in a sort-of shrug. “We’re marching into the jaws of death to rescue a captured comrade from people who want to destroy good things under the guise of bringing about peace. This mission isn’t going to be easy, and it isn’t going to be safe, but then again, nothing in life is—we’re fighting for something bigger than any of us, and it’s going to take more than just ordinary men to fight this battle, more than—”

“Stop, stop, I’m begging you,” Sam gasped, clutching his stomach and curling up like a pill-bug, “the voice—!”

“I was in the _pictures_ , pally, whaddya want from me?”

“Oh God,” Sam said. “Don’t bring out the Brooklyn accent with that face of yours, I’m actually going to asphyxiate before Romanoff comes back, and then you’d have to explain what happened, plus find some way to hide the body. So _please_.”

* * *

** Three months after #SHIELDGate: What have we learned? **

Christine Everhart | September 28 2014 | 12:32pm

(Vanity Fair) — “You’re not going to put me in a prison,” Natalia Alianovna Romanova — alias Black Widow — announced to the nation last month. “You’re not going to put any of us in a prison, (…) because you need us.”

Bold words coming from a political fugitive with a shady past as a Soviet assassin-turned-superspy. Romanova — or, as she calls herself on paper, Romanoff — has had no shortage of experience with close scrapes, both in the underground illegal cartel of international espionage and in the political sphere itself.

Occasionally, those wires crossed, as demonstrated in the highly publicized incident in June, where Romanoff adopted the visage and identity of World Security Councilwoman Dominika Hawley in order to take down — and out — the late Secretary and Director Alexander Goodwin Pierce, in the process releasing thousands of previously classified documents to the public.

** “If you want to arrest me, arrest me — you’ll know where to find me.” **

The primary revelation contained in the leaked documents was that the CIA-adjacent government program known as SHIELD (Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division) had been — allegedly unintentionally — harboring members of the Nazi scientist group HYDRA for decades.

HYDRA claimed responsibility for everything from tragedies such as the September 11th terrorist attack on the World Trade Center to wars and miscellaneous conflict in the Middle East.

Pierce, 74, had been singlehandedly managing SHIELD since the death of Nicholas Fury. He is survived by his wife, Maartje van der Bijl, their two children, Jozef and Marijke van der Bijl, and a daughter, Abigail Pierce, from his first marriage.

**_[ Related: Who was Nicholas J. Fury? An inside look at the man who saved — and threatened — the U.S. government. ](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2014/06/nick-fury-shield-insider-look) _ **

Among the leaked documents were plans for Project Insight, a HYDRA-born mass murder attempt aimed at reducing potential threats through targeted assassination.

Project Insight was brought to a halt with the assistance of Captain Steve Rogers (Captain America), and various unnamed SHIELD agents and first responders.

**READ MORE:**[ **COBIE SMULDERS DOUBLE LIFE AS U.N.** **CORRESPONDENTS** **MISTRESS? CLOSE FRIEND TELLS ALL**](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/09/cobie-smulders-united-nations-insider-tells-all) **-**[IRON MAN'S SECRET ILLEGITIMATE SON REVEALED! CURRENT GIRLFRIEND "HEARTBROKEN"](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/09/iron-man-illegitimate-son-heartbroken-girlfriend) **-**[MATT DAMON SET TO PLAY CAPTAIN AMERICA IN 2016 NETFLIX MINISERIES](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/09/matt-damon-captain-america-netflix-miniseries)

* * *

“Sooo,” said Natasha’s voice. “Good news or bad news first?”

“Whichever means turning the lights off, good God, woman,” Sam groaned, rolling over and shoving his face into Steve’s chest. Natasha was nothing more than a blurry shape in the light pouring through the hotel room door.

“Cute,” Natasha said. “I come bearing gifts of coffee and bagels, so get your asses up and start packing.”

“Bad news first,” Steve decided, sitting up and ignoring Sam’s muffled noise of protest when the light from the hallway hit his eyes.

Natasha made a quiet, amused noise. “Bad news is that we’re on the no-fly list, so commercial airlines are right out in terms of transportation, and I'm assuming neither of you would jump at the chance to take on of Stark's ultra-luxe private Boeings. I’ve got Maria and Isaiah both occupied doing damage control back at ground zero, but they can only do so much without us actually there to wrangle the PR shitstorm, so our options will be staying kind of limited. If we set foot on American soil anytime soon, there's a high probability of having to stand trial, whether we want it or not. Public opinion is ugly as fuck right now.”

“Well, fuck.”

“Fyeahgh,” Natasha said around the bagel she’d presumably just shoved into her mouth. Her cheeks worked for a moment, Sam and Steve watching her silhouette in horrified fascination, then she swallowed and continued, “Anyway, the good news is that I have a couple of favors Isaiah still owes me from _last_ time I saved his ass that I can call in to get us where we need to go.”

“Where d’we need to go?” Steve yawned. Beside him, Sam was muzzily pulling on his socks backwards.

“Not that far,” Natasha said grimly. She strode over to the duffel bags and started rummaging through the spare clothes bag, keeping her back to them. “The other part of the good news is that I have a list of addresses—not HYDRA bases, safe houses. We can plot a course that gives us time to stop by the safe houses and, well, you never know what you might find.”

“Natasha, I don’t know how to thank—” Steve started to say, then Natasha turned around to face them just as Sam flicked on the overhead light.

“Fuck,” Sam said quietly.

Natasha smiled like a ghoul. “Not very pretty, is it?”

The entire left half of her face was a mess of bruising, purple and yellow and a sickly greenish color reminiscent of something putrid, something rotting. There was a trickle of blood moving sluggishly down from the wide gash on her eyebrow. Her left eyelid was matted shut.

Pink-white lines encircled her throat. Like a necklace; like a noose.

Garotte wire, Steve thought, and felt sick to his stomach in a way he hasn't felt since 1942.

“Aw, and this isn’t even that bad,” she said out of the corner of her mouth, her lips puffy and scratched. “This was just getting a little information, that’s all.”

“Rogers, get the antiseptic wipes from the back pocket of my cargo pants,” Sam snapped, and moved towards the bags.

Quick as a whip, Natasha was standing in his way. “I appreciate the concern, Wilson, but I can take care of it on my own,” she said, poisonous-sweet. “You really want to help, you can pack your shit into the bag with the blue patch and do _not_ look through the rest of what’s in those bags. Give me five minutes—I’m serious, _five minutes—_ and I’ll be fine, I can take care of myself. And. We will _not_ talk about this, and we will _not_ bring this up when I’m going off on solo recon, _Steve_.” She tilted her head to one side; the motion made her look practically zombified. “Five minutes. _Now_.”

* * *

** A NEW FLAME TO KEEP THE HOME FIRES BURNING? **

(Page Six) — In the three years since Captain America was defrosted, there's been much speculation on his personal life, everything from his favorite modern haunts (local bistros, the library, Grand Central Station) to his love life. Fervent readers will be happy to know that Cap has been located out and about with a mystery woman whose identity SHIELD's PR department has yet to disclose. Cap and his red-headed date were spotted sharing street food and a private conversation last weekend (— what we wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall!), both wearing sunglasses and hoodies. Bad luck, Cap — you can't hide that easily!

** READ MORE:[Everything we know about the mystery woman spotted with Captain America – complete with exclusive photos ](https://www.pagesix.com/2014/06/10/a-new-flame-to-keep-the-home-fires-burning/) **

* * *

Natasha found them a car.

She made Steve drive this time, and instead sat in the backseat, meticulously cleaning and readying a truly worrying arsenal of weapons. Steve caught a glimpse of her calmly loading a Makarov PM in the rear-view mirror, plastic and metal pieces clacking together in her lap as she chambered bullets one by one, and decided to keep his eyes on the road.

They stopped in a tiny village on the outskirts of nowhere. The settlement was little more than a cluster of a half dozen buildings, most of them looking like sheds built a half century ago. Natasha gestured towards one such shack lined with corrugated metal plating on the outside, the roof sloping downwards in the middle, collecting a puddle of slowly thawing rainwater.

“C’mon,” Natasha muttered, readying the AK-103 she had apparently decided would be her firearm of choice.

They approached the shack cautiously, shooting glances back and forth.

Sam tapped two fingers against his palm, then twirled them near his temple, and Steve shook his head. They trailed behind Natasha, who walked slowly, languid but purposeful, like she had all the time in the world. The AK-103 rested against her hip, loose but ready.

“Three,” she said, the word escaping on an exhale.

A beat—one. Another—two. Another—and Natasha shoved the door open and darted inside, kicking it shut behind her with a horrible, wrenching screech of rusted metal.

Dust lifted into the air. Sam smothered a cough.

“Search,” Natasha mouthed, shouldering her gun, and vanished into what looked like the kitchen.

* * *

It was an ordinary house, plucked straight out of a fifties interior design catalogue. The floral pattern on the living room couch and armchairs was faded; the particleboard of the kitchen counters, dining room table, living room bookshelves, was cracked and peeling. Sam forced another cough into the collar of his shirt as his boots disturbed a thick layer of dust.

Steve knelt down next to the bookshelves.

One of the shelves had broken, leaving the contents sprawled out across the floor. He brushed aside the clinging dust and scooped up a few thin comics, their pages stuck together and brittle. “Look,” he said, holding them out towards Sam.

They were _Captain America_ comics—the originals, from during the war. The comics from before everyone knew that Steve Rogers was playing the role of Captain America, or Captain America was playing the role of Steve Rogers. The black domino mask of the ephemeral teenage sidekick stared brazenly up at them from the lower right corner, and Steve shifted his thumb to hide it.

“Shit, man,” Sam said. “If those things are real, they’d be worth _thousands_. You could make a fortune on eBay.”

Steve didn't answer. He pulled the pages apart, careful not to let them tear.

CAPTAIN AMERICA & HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS, the broad, colorful banner declared. CAPTAIN AMERICA’S TEEN SIDEKICK. CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE RED SKULL.

“Why would there be _Captain America_ comics,” Steve said, “in an abandoned house in the middle of Russia?”

“Your appeal is international,” Sam offered, but he was squinting down at the comics apprehensively.

The cabinets were devoid of supplies. Sam opened the fridge, then cursed when a fresh cloud of dust assaulted him. They walked through the kitchen, the hallway, into one of the bedrooms.

The bed was made, coverlet turned down like someone was still planning come along to sleep in it. Steve went over to the nightstand; there was a pad of paper and a pen sat on it, the paper yellowed at the edges. The beginnings of a note: _Саша, спасибо что сказали мне что Капитан Америка жив! Я скажу Василий_ —

Sam was at the window, peering through the blinds. “I don’t even know what we’re looking for.”

“Lucky for you, it doesn’t matter,” said Natasha from the doorway; they both spun around guiltily. She held up a manila envelope and smiled. “I got the package. We’re good to go, boys.”

* * *

They’d barely reached the car when the building exploded behind them.

Steve reacted instinctively, shoving Natasha ahead of him and throwing himself across the trunk of the car, pulling the door open and grabbing for the bag in the backseat that holds his shield. Sam was crouched next to him, making himself small; he snatched a firearm from Natasha’s weapons collection, and ducked back down.

“Did you do that?” Sam demanded, but Natasha was shaking her head.

“I already got what I wanted,” she said, stubborn. “I don’t leave a trace. This—” She gestured towards the burning wreck of the shack. “This is leaving a trace.”

“It could be rigged to blow if someone took... whatever it is you took,” Sam suggested.

Steve was still just stood there numbly, holding the shield like there would be something he could do with it. The car door handle was crushed where he'd grabbed it. For a moment, he thought he saw—something... A shadow moving crookedly, sideways; almost like it could have been, _maybe—_

Natasha stood up slowly, pushing a few loose strands of bright hair behind her ears. “Maybe. But whatever it is, I don’t think we want to stick around to see what’s next on the list.”

* * *

Steve read the file in the car, with Natasha driving, humming along to Russian pop hits on the radio.

The envelope was slim. The folder within contained only five thin sheets of paper. One was a full-page glossy spread of a photograph that Steve didn't look at for longer than he had to. He’d already spent hours staring at the pictures of Bucky, drinking them in, drinking in the simple fact that Bucky was _real_ , but this wasn’t Bucky. This was a picture of his own face, his eyes closed. A bruise on his temple and forehead. Faint red markings and notes in Ukrainian along the margins.

The other four sheets of paper were printouts of emails, three of which were in English. The fourth, in Ukrainian, he shoved back in the envelope to decipher later, alongside the picture of his face.

Dr. Cho,

Thank you for expressing your interest in our little project. We would be delighted to have your assistance and experience working alongside us. As I’m sure you know, our correspondents from the CIA and the Pentagon have stressed that these proceedings are of the utmost secrecy. I’m certain you can extrapolate as to why.

As I mentioned in my last email, you were my first choice for this position before you even reached out to us. Your work in cryogenics dealing with clathrate hydrates has been revolutionary. Of course, the subject we’re dealing with isn’t as simple as a frozen worm or giant squid, but you are the world’s foremost expert on cryogenics, so I trust we’ll be in capable hands. This is not my first rodeo, nor is it yours, when it comes to this topic.

How soon will you be able to leave Korea? I can arrange transportation, if that is the issue. My good friend Obadiah Stane is on the payroll of Stark Industries, and disposable income is not something we lack.

HH,

Secretary Alexander Pierce   
Co-Director of SHIELD   
World Security Council

Mr. Secretary,

Thank you (and Mayim!) again for this opportunity! I will be finishing my current research project (a five-year report on mechanically augmented prosthetic technology for disabled and paraplegic veterans) in a few short months, hopefully before the end of next June. If everything proceeds according to plan, I should be able to be back in the United States by sometime in July of next year.

I hope you understand how excited I am. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for someone like me (for anyone, really), and it’s a great honor that your mind went to me as the person for the job. I can hardly wait to get my hands on such a specimen (forgive the turn of phrase)!

Sincerely,

Dr. Helen Cho   
Gwangju Institute for Research and Development in Robotics (GIRDR)

Dr. Cho,

Expedite your current project to the end of the week. If you need resources — classified documents, lab assistants, grant funding, whatever it is – let me know, and I will ensure it is provided. Be ready to leave the country on the 27th. This project cannot wait.

Alex

Steve shuffled the papers and looked away.

“Hey,” Sam said. His chin was resting on the shoulder of Steve’s seat. “Nothing good in there, huh?”

Steve shook his head. “I don’t know what to think,” he says.

The list of people he'd thought he could trust was dwindling, day by day. In his nightmares, he would open a file and see Natasha’s name, or Sam’s, or even Peggy’s. In his nightmares, the line between _SHIELD_ and _HYDRA_ would be irrevocably blurred.

“I don’t know who to trust,” Steve added.

Sam sat back. He didn't say, _You can trust me_ , which was good; Steve didn't think he could have handled something like that right then. Instead, Sam chewed on his lip for a moment, then said, “As long as you can trust yourself, I guess.”

“See, that’s not so easy,” Steve said.

Sam's eyebrows tilted. Steve ignored him and closed the file definitively, sealing the email printouts inside.

Helen Cho.

He’d spoken to her after the attack on Manhattan two years ago; he’d chatted with her in the hall when he’d passed her on his way to a debriefing with Agent Hill. He’d read up on her work concerning fused deposition modeling of prosthetic limbs for disabled soldiers and civilians. He’d seen her prototypes himself—the way she could create new organs and tissue from thin air, it seemed. The sort of thing that the good guys were supposed to be doing.

Sam frowned. “Maybe you need to reexamine your parameters of the word ‘trust.’”

* * *

He was stumbling out of a burning building somewhere in Kreischberg, Bucky’s arm still slung over his shoulder, his body a dead weight at his side. Steve forced his feet to keep moving, keep going, keep— He could see some of the liberated prisoners heading for the tanks, artillery, and silently sent out a prayer that they make it. He hadn’t believed since he was sixteen, not really, but if someone or something out there would be listening, he hoped against hope that they all make it out.

Bucky’s head fell against his shoulder, and Steve grabbed for him, trying to adjust their position. He could feel Bucky shivering through the thin undershirt he was wearing, his dog tags swinging freely outside his shirt.

Breach of conduct, Steve thought, dizzy with adrenaline and fear, then hoisted Bucky’s arm back around his neck and kept moving.

“Steve,” Bucky mumbled, his mouth rubbing against the rough fabric of Steve’s costume. “Steve, ’s the—you—”

“Yeah, Buck, it’s me, I’m gonna get us out of here,” Steve said.

He managed to pull them both into the copse near where he’d stormed the laboratory in the first place. Bucky slid down until he was sat with his shoulders against a tree trunk, head still tilting to one side, eyes unfocused. He mumbled something that Steve couldn’t make out.

“Hey, hey, honey, I can’t hear what you said,” Steve murmured.

He smoothed his thumbs over Bucky's jaw; Bucky just made another unintelligible noise.

Steve's hands were twitching with the effort not to grab onto Bucky and cling to him and never let go. He didn’t have a med kit with him, he didn’t have a clear evac strategy, he didn't even have a coherent plan, and his radio was busted to hell and back.

Instead, he said, “Can you tell me what they did to you? Is there anything serious?”

Bucky struggled for a moment, then got his hand up to tap against his forehead. “Fucked me up,” he said, letting his fingers fall limply against the side of his face. “In here.”

“With the—” Steve hesitated.

“Made me see things that ain’t there.” Bucky’s mouth twisted around the words; it made his expression look ugly and dead, with the blood still smeared on his mouth and jaw. “But you’re a nicer one ’n most, though.”

“You’re gonna be fine, honey,” Steve said. He was still crouched on the ground in front of Bucky, hands on his shoulders and chest, keeping him in place. “I got you, we’re gonna be okay, we made it out of there, okay?”

“Still do hate it when you fuckin’ talk down to me, Rogers,” Bucky said, and coughed, a raw and awful sound. “Takes more ’n that to k—kill me, sweetheart. Hey,” and he reached for Steve’s face with his shaky fingers, pulling him down, down. “Hey, c’mere, kid.”

“Don’t call me—” Steve started to say, but then Bucky was kissing him, mouth open, pushing against him like he was trying to crawl into his skin, and Steve forgot that they were in the middle of a forest in Austria.

Bucky had always been able to make him lose his head, that was the thing. That was the God damn ticket.

Steve forgot that a HYDRA base was still burning behind them, that the echoing roar in his ears was the _rat-a-tat-tat-ah_ bursts of gunfire and the tank treads on gravel as the buildings collapsed with horrible shrieking sounds of metal against metal against metal. Bucky’s skin was hot, almost feverish, and he was still shaking, full-body tremors that made him twitch and shudder against Steve’s chest, fingers scrabbling across the front of his stupid brightly-colored uniform— 

* * *

He woke up and his eyes were wet. Sam was snoring in the other hotel bed; Natasha was once again nowhere to be found.

Steve got up quietly and padded into the bathroom. He shut the door carefully behind him. Splashed water on his face. Gripped the edges of the sink and rested his forehead against the cool glass of the mirror.

Before the forest in Kreischberg, he hadn’t been able to kiss Bucky in almost half a year. And after that, it had been the long, grueling march back to camp, and then the debriefing, and the missions, and then Peggy had been there, and he’d barely had time to himself to catch some sleep, much less anything—

Steve glanced up to look at his own face in the mirror, but the framing reminded him too much of the photograph in the manila envelope. He looked back down at his hands, bracketing the smooth porcelain sink.

He’d gotten off to the memory of that kiss, alone in his tent, one hand over his mouth and his ears open, straining to catch the slightest sound that might have been someone nearby. Thinking about the familiar yet strange weight of Bucky pressed all up against him, his hands on Steve’s chest and throat, his mouth, hot and open and desperate.

It had felt wrong, then; it felt worse, now.

“You’re fucked up, Rogers,” he told his reflection. If he didn’t think about it, he could imagine his reflection winking cheekily back at him.

He didn’t know what they did to Bucky in that laboratory, strapped to that table. He didn’t get a chance to scope out the equipment before the building went up in flames, and Bucky kept his mouth shut tighter than a God damn clam about what had happened. _I don’t remember. Sir_ , he told Col. Phillips, sharp and clipped; _shut your gab, I don’t remember shit, I told you_ , he told Steve.

It still felt dishonest, to be thinking about Bucky in that way.

As much as Steve knew it wasn’t true, it felt like two separate people in his mind: Bucky from before the war, in his olive drab uniform with his hair all slicked back, that cool little smile he’d send Steve when no one was looking—the smile that meant he knew exactly what Steve was thinking about doing to him, and was enjoying the attention.

And then Bucky from after the war, strapped into a harness like a sidearm at someone’s hip, only his eyes visible, the interlocking plates of his arm whirring and adjusting with each movement.

If he thought, _Bucky_ , the image in his head would be split in two. He couldn't reconcile 1944 with 2014, seventy years’ abyss yawning between them.

1944: He could think about Bucky mouthing at his ear, pressing him against the wall of the barracks with one hand down the front of Steve’s uniform and whispering, _Quiet, gotta be quiet, keep your mouth shut or I’ll have to—_ , and Steve surprising himself with how much he wanted that, pushing into Bucky’s grip, mouth open, breath catching on the desire when he tried to inhale.

2014: He could think about the fight on the bridge. The quick, deadly efficiency of his opponent, and how, if he really thought about it, the Winter Soldier had moved with the same calculated precision that Bucky did when he was picking off enemy soldiers with his back braced against a tree trunk or the incline of a trench wall—the same hard flint in his eyes, the same dogged intention, the same—the same—exact—

Steve dropped his head and forced his fingers to uncurl from where he was still gripping the counter. He was hard; he didn’t know what got him there, but if he thought any more about it, he was going to fly apart.

He tried to breathe evenly, but then suddenly he was shaking, freezing cold, taking great heaving breaths to try to keep the ragged noises from escaping. He thought, _Bucky_ ; he thought, _I should have_ —

A small, quiet knock on the door, then Sam pushed it open slightly, just enough for Steve to see a faint sliver of his face through the crack.

“Hey,” Sam whispered. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

Steve closed his eyes and drew in a shuddering breath.

“Tell me to fuck off and I’ll fuck off,” Sam said.

“I don’t want you to fuck off,” Steve said. He opened his eyes and made himself look at Sam. “We were going to—go out to the Grand Canyon, you know. After.”

“After the war,” Sam said.

“Yeah.”

He could think about that, too.

"When we get out of here," Bucky used to tell him, "I’m takin’ you to the Grand Canyon."

You're just grandstanding, fuck off, Steve would say, invariably.

"I ain't! We’re going to see the Grand Canyon," Bucky would protest.

He usually said it in the same tone of voice he used to say, _if you were a dame I'd have already walked you up the aisle_ , though, so Steve hadn't put much weight into Bucky's dreamland plan.

"This ain't true love, I'm freezing my fuckin' dick off. Pal, I’m gonna get you out to the Grand Canyon if it’s the last thing I do. All nice and warm," Bucky had said, standing on a frozen cliff's edge, looking down into a ravine. The first wisps of smoke from the German Schnellzug were visible, around the bend.

Steve had laughed, then. Bucky had grinned at him and said, "Hey, remember when I made you ride the Cyclone at Coney Island?"

It was shorthand for everything post-war: a house, a home, a life. A steady job. Enough money to fix up the old tenement so it wouldn’t be so cold in the winters. A new coat and gloves for Bucky, for when he was working winters as a clerk in Gruenwald’s, the tiny corner store that would be called a _bodega_ these days. Some new drawing pencils for Steve, maybe. An orange, for the two of them to share, on holidays and birthdays.

You know, Bucky used to say. After the war.

After the war. But then the war hadn't ended.

“In a way,” Sam said, slowly, “you could think of this as your end-of-the-war trip around the globe, I guess. World’s most glorified game of hide and seek. Treasure hunt. Pot of gold at the end of the God damn rainbow. He’ll show up at your place with a ribbon on and be like, ‘Unwrap your prize, big boy.’”

Steve choked out a mangled laugh before he could stop himself. He said, “Did you know Helen Cho was part of HYDRA? Or at least worked with them, I mean. She and Pierce were making plans to do... something. That had to do with—” He couldn’t say Bucky’s name. “With you know.”

Sam’s forehead creased. “That’s what was in the file? Man, I watched her show on PBS when I was a kid. That’s sick.”

“Yeah.” Steve pivoted until his back was against the sink, and turned his head to rest his chin on his shoulder.

Sam said, “It still fucks me up. The things people can do to another person. And then turn around and go about their lives like everything’s fine and dandy. I’ve seen people rationalize some crazy shit, man, but nothing like this.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. He said, “I guess they didn’t think of him like he was another person.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sources and references round-up can be found [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pBDOfZDeL7HyiRrvYYm8Ue0pe44g9kX8xBj4egtBq7A/edit?usp=sharing).


	5. The living legend and symbol

* * *

For the rest of the world, it had been seventy years since Bucky Barnes died.

Long enough to have turned him into a cultural icon, the type to be immortalized on the silver screen, on the flashy, lurid pages of comic books, in historical fiction, in historical _non_ -fiction, in one bizarre paperback romance novel Sam inexplicably owned, in which an anachronistic MI6 spy seduced both Captain America and his right hand man.

(“Everyone called it the SOE though,” Steve had told him, “I mean, Peggy told me...”

Sam had burst out laughing. “Man, and _that's_ what you’re most worried about? C’mon, dude, look at what they wrote about your dick—”)

Seventy years: Steve didn’t own any of the biographies; he’d been too chickenshit, too heartsick, but he’d spent enough time at libraries and bookstores to know the gist of it. After all, you could go to any comic book store in America and buy a refurbished hardcover fiftieth edition of _Captain America & His Howling Commandos, 1943-1945_.

Live in living color. Full spread propaganda. A dish best served hot. You could go to any comic book store in America and buy little plastic figurines of Capt. Steve Rogers, of Cpl. Timothy Dugan, of SFC James Barnes.

Steve knew there was some debate over when Bucky was born (some accounts placing his birth certificate in 1916, others in 1917, and one egregious outlier claiming it was 1920); he knew that Rebecca Winnifred Proctor, née Barnes, had died in 1997, leaving behind three children and eight grandchildren, scores and scores of relatives he had never met and probably never would. He knew that historians tended to take it on faith that what Bucky wrote in his infrequent letters had been fact; he knew there was a portion of the Smithsonian’s exhibit dedicated to Bucky’s personal things—a replica of his M1941 Johnson sharpshooter rifle, shiny and new, without the sticky brown coat of cosmoline; a map of the neighborhood in Brooklyn where he grew up, printed on yellowing paper; a handkerchief Rebecca had embroidered, before Bucky shipped out, with J.B. BARNES stitched on the corner; a handful of Bucky’s surviving letters from his time in basic.

Most of the letters had been in Steve’s tent back at base camp, when Bucky died. Half of them had gone into the ice with Steve, tucked into the inner lining of his uniform. He didn’t know what had happened to them after that.

The museum, possibly. Someone's private collection of vintage wartime memorabilia.

(He and Bucky had never signed the unsent letters—Steve could imagine the unspooling mythos of the two mysterious queer soldiers, star fucking crossed, forced to hide their true feelings from the uncaring world. He knew what the word _homophobia_ meant, now; things were supposed to be different, in the future. But it wasn't as though it mattered, after.

Sometimes, he would let himself wonder about what people must have thought of it all. A romantic tragedy, that's what it would have been... The one soldier who'd died, and the one who'd tried his damn hardest to follow—)

The incident at the Brenner Pass, the museum had called it. The museum had talked in somber yet smug tones about the Schnellzug, about Zola, about Operation Cold Comfort. About the incident at the Brenner Pass. But it hadn't been an incident, then. It had just been when Bucky died—

When Bucky died.

Seventy years, it had been.

Long enough for the original Captain America newsreels and comic books to become collectors’ items. Long enough for Bucky’s smattering of biographies to be shelved in the hefty WWII historical nonfiction section, next to the heavy hardcover tomes somberly discussing Hitler and the Holocaust and Auschwitz and VE Day and the demobilization.

But Captain America hadn't been around for those things.

For Steve, it had been barely three years. The rest of the world had lived for over two times as long without Bucky than they did _with_ him; for Steve, it had been barely enough time to catch his breath.

* * *

“I don’t have conclusive intel that he even stayed here,” Natasha said, for what was probably at least the twentieth time.

“I know,” Steve told her.

“All I can confirm is that this is one of our shared safe houses.”

“I know.”

“Steve, calm down, man, you’re vibrating out of your seat,” Sam said. He aimed a pointed kick at the back of Steve’s seat.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Sam said, “just—”

“ _Sorry_.”

Natasha stopped the car in an alleyway behind the apartment building. She left the windows rolled down, and turned off the ignition pointedly.

Steve stuck his head out the passenger side window and craned his neck, trying to see up the side of the building.

Someone yelled something in Estonian in the distance; a dog barked, once. The air smelled like old snow.

“Okay, then,” said Natasha, and half-threw herself into the back seat to grab supplies from her weapons duffel.

She came up brandishing a .32 Škorpion in one hand, and Sam flinched away automatically, but Natasha just smoothly tucked the weapon inside the back of her coat, and slid out of the car.

“Falcon, catch,” Natasha called, and tossed him something.

Sam turned over the tiny metal spheres in his hand. “What’re these?”

“Widow’s bites,” she said. “Electric shockers. Think rhino tranqs, but without the risk of not working if the dosage is too low or just straight-up killing your target if you fuck it up and the dosage is too high. Squeeze the little panel and throw ’em when you need to engage. They’re nonlethal, unless you’ve got a Pacemaker.”

Steve narrowed his eyes. “Or a metal arm?”

“Relax,” said Natasha breezily. “He’s not that easy to kill.”

She grabbed another pair of the widow’s bites, and handed them to Steve, this time; he knew full well that the shield would have been far too conspicuous, but he still couldn't help setting his jaw when he accepted the stunners.

“Besides,” Natasha added, “I already hit him with one of these, full blast, and he barely batted an eyelash. Your boy’s earned his reputation as a ghost, you know that.”

Steve forced himself to take a deep breath. He wasn’t happy about the situation, and he knew Natasha was aware of that, but he didn’t push.

It’d be worth it, he thought. It’d be worth it, if he got to see Bucky again.

Not finding Bucky was unthinkable. It wasn't an option he could or would consider.

Steve thought about something he'd read, once: _don't go where I can't follow_.

He and Sam loitered awkwardly in the alleyway while Natasha did something complicated to the lock on the back entrance. Sam rolled the widow’s bites over and over in his hand, mesmerized by the dull shine from the streetlights on the black-tinted metal.

A curtain fluttered in an upstairs window. A few streets over, tires screeched and a car horn blared.

“Mida _vittu_ ,” Natasha hissed, then, “lähme, c’mon, let's go.”

The staircase seemed endless. Steve couldn’t stop thinking about what could happen. His hand drifted down to touch the pocket where he’d been keeping Bucky’s picture. He thought: I don’t even know if he’ll recognize me. The thought of seeing Bucky again was terrible and wonderful; it bloomed inside his chest, threatening to smother him from the inside out. He touched his pocket again. Maybe he should have brought something to eat. Or cigarettes: Bucky had always liked to smoke Camels, even though they were real girly smokes. Or an orange. He should have brought an orange. Something to remind them both of better days—but no, that wasn’t right—

They were standing in front of a door, suddenly. The wood paint was chipped slightly.

Natasha did something to the handle, and the lock clicked open.

“Barnes!” Sam called out as he stepped through the door. He glanced back at Steve; shrugged. “If you’re in there, man, we just want to talk.”

“Солдат,” Natasha said warily, every muscle tensed, then, “зима... вы слушаете?”

“I don’t think he’s here,” Sam murmured.

Steve glanced around. The room was small—a mattress shoved up against one wall, facing perpendicular to the door; a makeshift bookshelf fashioned with concrete bricks; a minifridge with a few unopened envelopes sat on top of it. Steve crossed over towards the fridge, disappointment thick in his throat.

“Unless he was going by the name Yakov Mikhaylovich, and brought his postcards all the way from Russia,” Natasha said, tilting her head towards the small pile of mail.

Яков Михайлович, the envelopes said. Steve flipped through them hungrily: what looked like an electricity bill; a spam postcard from a car dealership. He set the pile back on the dusty fridge.

“I don’t think he’s been here recently,” Sam said. He ran his forearm along the top of the cinder block bookshelf; his sleeve came out coated in dust. “I don’t think anyone’s been here recently.”

Steve glanced over at Natasha for confirmation. Her posture was deceptively casual, one hand propped against her hip, but he’d known her for long enough to know that something about the apartment was making her deeply uneasy. She caught him looking and smiled, flashing her dimples. There was still the imprint of a fading bruise surrounding her eye.

“Bathroom,” she said.

* * *

Truth is, Bucky wrote, I’m scared to die. I shouldn’t be but I am. It’s stupid, you’d think it’s stupid, but I see all these fellas that I’ve spent the past couple months training with and I don’t want us to go to war. Some of these kids are barely older than you were when your Ma died. Well they gave us guns and taught us how to shoot. I’m more comfortable now handling a Luger than I would be with braiding B.’s hair. It ain’t grandstanding if it’s the truth, sweetheart. Truth is I’d rather be back home with you. But better me than you right? That’s what I keep telling myself. It’s not that I don’t want us to win the war. I just wish there was no war. I don’t want to go kill Japs or Jerrys or anyone really. I guess it blows that I’m such a good sharpshooter. That’s the thing about it, sweetheart. I’m a damn good sharpshooter.

* * *

The sink was grimy and the mirror was spotted, but there was a toothbrush resting in a plastic cup on the soap dish. Steve looked in the mirror and saw himself in 1934; Steve looked in the mirror and saw the crimson bones of Johann Schmidt.

The shower curtain was only half-attached. There was a collection of tiny bottles, like the kind you might find in hotel rooms, lined up on the edge of the porcelain rim.

“They burned the bodies,” Bucky had told him, sometime after Azzano, after Kreischberg, after the 107th in all their avenging, homecoming glory. “Had us drag the men who’d—died that day, drag ’em over to the ovens. You ever think about what a burning body would smell like? Well, I’ll tell you. They smelled just like a God damn Thanksgiving turkey.”

Steve had turned over Bucky’s hand in his, fingertips tracing the lines across his palm, the calluses worn rough from handling his rifle. He hadn’t known what to say. What _was_ there to say? He couldn’t have undone anything that had happened.

“Smelled sweet,” Bucky said. “And afterwards, they had us rake out the fuckin’ ashes. Thought I’d choke on it, the stench was so thick. And of course they hadn't given us anything to eat. The fucking schlimazelsmelled like the best thing in the fucking world.”

“Buck,” Steve said, soft.

“Each time I had to drag some poor fink off to the kiln, all I could think was, thank God it ain’t me. So ain’t that fucked up, sweetheart?” He had shaken his head and smiled, but it wasn’t a nice smile. “My brothers in arms are roasting like chestnuts and all I can think is how God damn lucky I am.”

The bottles of soap and shampoo and conditioner were sat in a neat little row, like soldiers at attention.

Steve thought about wrapping Bucky’s hands in bandages after Bucky had scrubbed them until they were raw and bleeding; he thought about Bucky doing his hair before going out dancing, meticulous, a real jive bomber; he thought about holding Bucky against his chest, with Bucky shaking like a leaf, silent even then, trying to wash off the feeling of the hot ash of burned bodies settling like flower petals on his skin. _I can’t get the fucking smell out_ , he’d said. _It’s in my God damn nose. I can’t get rid of it_.

Natasha crouched down next to him. He hadn’t even realized he was on the floor.

“Hey,” she said, and touched his shoulder with a soft hand. “We’ll be right outside. Take as much time as you need.”

* * *

When Bucky had been listed as missing in action, presumed killed in action although no one would say it aloud, and the condolence letters had been written, they would have been sent to an empty apartment in Brooklyn.

George M. Barnes had died before his oldest child had reached twenty-three, and Winnifred Barnes had died sometime while her only son was at war. Rebecca, who had been barely sixteen when Bucky shipped out, had sent a letter talking about the funeral.

Although they weren’t legally family (good as, Bucky always said, jaw set stubbornly), Steve had been listed as next of kin.

Just like he had been on Bucky's first set of tags. He'd lost those, after Kreischberg; he'd worn Steve's on the march home. But dog tags had been one thing, and paperwork had been another entirely. It had been Bucky's work, maybe, or Peggy's; he didn't know. He'd never thought to ask.

"The only living soul in the world who would know to mourn," Bucky had said, once. It had been during one of his disparaging drunken periods, though; Steve hadn't taken him seriously.

Hadn't, not then. But he should have.

Should have known that while the world might rend its garments and tear its hair at the tragic loss of Captain America’s dutiful sidekick, only Steve would have known what was really missing.

Steve didn’t know if anyone had written to Rebecca to let her know. Or had she found out when the papers revealed his own disappearance, stoic and emotionless?

_Captain America was reported missing in action shortly after the death of his unit’s designated marksman Sgt. Jas. Barnes—_

The incident at the Brenner Pass. The fucking incident at the fucking Brenner fucking Pass.

Allied scout teams had combed the mountains around the Brenner Pass, searching, but they’d uncovered nothing but snow and snow and more snow. An empty grave. A frozen burial. Steve had wanted to go, to search himself; he couldn't stop thinking about an awful red smudge of blood against the wide white expanse of snow at the bottom of that ravine. He knew what temperature and exposure did to the human body.

But Col. Phillips had been clear: Captain America was needed closer to home.

If Barnes’s body is out there, Col. Chester Phillips had said, we’ll bring the poor sucker home for the sendoff he deserves.

Steve would have gone anyway, had Peggy not been there to convince him otherwise. He _should_ have gone anyway. It was still the biggest regret of his entire life.

With Bucky gone, there would have been no one to receive Steve’s letter. Had Peggy written it? How long had they searched for him before giving up? Did Peggy ever realize that the last known coordinates had been light-years away from the course he’d been supposed to have been on?

It was fitting, in a way, he thought. Bucky hadn’t chosen to go to war, and Steve had; Bucky hadn’t chosen to die, and Steve had. And after everything, the world still hadn’t allowed him the dignity of a quiet death.

* * *

winter soldier  
About 342,000,000 results (1.19 seconds)

New information contained within SHIELD data leak  
suggests that “Project **Winter Soldier** ” was somehow  
responsible for...

ABC News – 6 hours ago

What was the **Winter Soldier**? That’s been the question  
on everyone’s mind these past few weeks, following the  
massive data leak of previously classified government…

‘ **Winter Soldier** ’ files suggest HYDRA interference in Iran,  
other MENA countries

Chicago Tribune – 4 hours ago

According to the controversial documents leaked to the  
press by… Cold War weapon known as the ‘ **Winter**  
 **Soldier** ’ was responsible for kickstarting the  
radicalization of…

What (or who) is the “ **Winter Soldier** ”?

Washington, DC (AP) – 2 minutes ago

Everything currently known about HYDRA’s secret Cold  
War weapon, identified only as the “ **Winter** **Soldier** ” prior  
to 1991, and the “Asset” up until… suspected of global  
interference intended to maintain the hegemony…

HYDRA files imply ‘ **Winter Soldier** ’ was one man, not a  
Cold War weapons program, claim analysts

NY Times – 38 minutes ago

Although the documents released were primarily in  
English, a few were in other languages, including  
Russian, Ukrainian, French… singular pronoun when  
referring to the ‘ **Winter Soldier** ,’ implying…

* * *

The next safe house on Natasha’s list was apparently contained within a HYDRA base.

“It’s quite clever, really,” Natasha said, with a detached sort of admiration. She was casually flipping through a tourist guide book entitled _Local Fauna & Flora of West Sussex_, her feet on the dashboard of the car again. “The base itself is a laboratory built into a university campus. The safe house is in the dorms.”

“Hold up, we can’t blow up a college campus,” Sam protested. “Nazis or not, the police would shit a brick over that, and this face is too pretty to wind up behind bars.”

“Sam’s right,” Steve said reluctantly. He glanced at Natasha’s map. “It’ll have to be a stealth mission. We don’t know how many of the scientists working there are HYDRA, so we’ll have to—”

But Natasha was shaking her head. “This isn’t going to happen through brute force,” she said. “You want the safe house, I can get you to the safe house. You want the base taken down, I suggest you _both_ fuck off to the other side of the world and let me do what I do best. This is precision work, not wet work. If we come in guns blazing, they’ll scatter, and if there’s one thing HYDRA goons are good at, it’s disappearing.”

“I don’t want to split up,” Steve said.

“Aw, I’ll miss you too,” said Natasha. “I’ll give you the address for the safe house. I blocked all incoming calls with caller ID on your phone—in case you were wondering why Stark suddenly stopped blowing up your line—but if I call from a burner phone, it should go through. Probably. It’s Soviet tech, so it’s good."

"Soviet tech, huh," Sam said.

Natasha dimpled at him. "Soviet tech got us into space nearly a decade before the Americans did, Wilson. Say what you will about the Russians, but we know how to get shit done."

"Sure, I believe it," Sam said evenly.

"I’ll leave the list of safe houses with you," Natasha said, "and you can check ’em off one by one.”

Sam said, “I still don’t know if I like this plan.”

“Well,” Steve said. He glanced at Natasha’s map again. “I guess it’s the only one we’ve got.”

* * *

When Steve came to, he was lying flat on something hard and lumpy, the surface digging uncomfortably into his back.

For a moment—a single, impossible second—he thought he was laid up on the hand-stuffed mattress in the tiny gray-walled room of the apartment—

And then his eyes blinked open and there was fire everywhere.

He closed his eyes.

Rewind.

He was standing in the hallway and listening to the familiar strains of Harry James and Kitty Kallen seeping through his apartment door. He was standing in the hallway and it was 1937, before the war, and Bucky was finishing up with the laundry, still in his work clothes but stripped down to his undershirt, and Steve's mouth was dry watching the muscles of Bucky's back shift when he lifted the hamper—but that couldn’t be right, could it—?

No, it was 1944, and he was sat in a pup tent in the rain, and the radio was on—but no, that wasn’t right either—

He was standing in the hallway, and it was 2014, and he was listening to a song released months after he went into the ice, and Nick Fury was about to reveal himself, and Bucky was about to shoot him. Steve fumbled the keys trying to unlock the door, his shield braced against the wood frame of the door, stomach clenching unpleasantly.

Rewind, he thought.

Before Fury, before the song and the gunshots, before the madcap chase through the rooftops, before the feeling of balancing on the edge of the building with the wind buffeting him, looking down.

Steve had thought about jumping, then and there. The fall might not have killed him, but at least for a few blissful seconds it would have been enough to quiet his head.

He was standing in the hallway.

 _Rewind_ , damn it.

He was standing in the hallway. He was on a plane falling towards the glittering blue-white ocean below. He was curled up under a ratty blanket with his skin burning up from fever and a soft, cool hand pressed to his forehead. He was clinging to the side of a German Schnellzug, icy wind whipping his face, the clattering of the wheels jolting him down to his bones, watching as—

Rewind. REWIND.

Fucking _rewind_.

When Steve came to, he was lying on the muddy bank of the Potomac. He was surrounded by twisted scraps of metal, some still burning.

Debris ink-blotted the sky. He was alone, but he knew that there was only one person who could have pulled him from the water.

The pain solidified a moment later.

A dull ache in his shoulder, his thigh, his stomach. He tried to lift his arm, to sit up, and the movement released another hot gush of blood. Spilling onto his uniform, staining it a murky red. The bullets had ripped straight through the thin fabric of the costume, tearing into skin and flesh and muscle.

The needle skipped across the vinyl. Kitty Kallen crooned, _kiss me once and kiss me twice then kiss me once again_...

Rewind.

* * *

The safe house in Chichester was empty and pristine. Steve found a letter-sized envelope in the top drawer of the nightstand, and pocketed it, heart in his throat, while Sam wandered through the house, exploring, and helped himself to some string cheese from the fridge.

“Sam,” said Steve.

“What? It’s not like anyone was using it. And it’s probably not poisoned. Probably. Why would HYDRA keep poisoned cheese sticks in their safe houses? Death by dairy sounds like the name of a b-list murder mystery, not a legitimate tactic used by the world’s shadiest evil organization.”

“I don’t think these are HYDRA’s safe houses,” Steve said. “I think they’re Natasha’s.”

He walked over to the window and lifted the curtain, peering out onto the cobblestone street below. A moment later, Sam joined him, still chewing. “Well, how’s she figure Barnes knows about ’em, then? And who pays for all this stuff, anyway? There’s like three different types of juice that aren’t even past the expiration date.”

“I don’t know, Sam,” Steve said. He leaned his head against the cool glass of the windowpane, fighting off the migraine threatening to take hold. “I’m as frustrated as you are.”

Sam finished the string cheese thoughtfully. “Well, unless you wanna check into a hotel for the night, and risk the media finding out where we are, I’m thinking we should stay here. I mean, if Romanoff decided it’s safe enough for her...”

“Fine,” Steve said, turning away from the window and dropping the curtain. It was patterned with tiny blue flowers, connected by intricate vines almost too small to be visible. “I’ll take the couch and keep watch. You can take the bedroom.”

He ended up in the kitchen, the collection of papers and photos and files spread out across the tiny three-legged table, while Sam puttered around in the background, taking stock of the supplies in the cupboards. Occasionally he would say something like, “Huh, pop tarts, cool,” or, “Oh, hello, assault rifle next to the granola,” or, “Wow, that’s a lot of bandages,” but otherwise it was quiet. Sam had even taken off his boots in favor of just socks; Steve’s fingers were itching for a radio, a record player, anything to break the silence.

Fury had said: sorry to drop in unannounced. Fury had said: but your stereo was on, and I assumed you’d be home.

He still didn’t know why the record had been playing. He was still refusing to let himself think that Pierce might have sent Bucky in first, to turn on Harry James and Kitty Kallen, a sick little welcome-home present.

Steve looked down at the papers in front of him. The majority of them were records of what HYDRA had done to the Winter Soldier: medical records, service records, mission reports. Someone, probably Natasha, had removed the more graphic photographs of the surgeries, but the descriptions remained—bone saws, chisels, sutures. They’d wanted to test the limits of the serum, and they’d done so by cutting their subjects into mincemeat and recording how long it took for them to heal. Some, like Bucky, had managed to survive. Others hadn't been so fortunate.

 _Incision on C6: subject retains partial wrist control, but is unable to control fine motor functions. Fully healed within two days._ _Incision on C5: subject lost wrist control but retains control of shoulders and neck. Fully healed within three and a half days._ _Incision on C4: subject lost all movement below the neck. Fully healed within five days._ _Incision on C3: subject required a ventilator for two days. Fully healed within six and a half days_.

The clinical, dispassionate tone of the reports was nauseating.

The mission reports were almost easier to stomach, because those detailed atrocities happening to people he would never know, during decades he would never visit. He remembered something Bucky had written in one of his letters, one of the ones he had never sent: it’s easier to excuse what happened to someone if you don’t know them.

“I’m going to die in this house,” Sam announced, “of sheer boredom. Hey, Rogers, you used to be entertainment for pay, tell me a story, tell me a joke, _anything_.”

Steve said, “Did you ever hear about what happened to Little Audrey’s brother? He and Little Audrey were playing on the front steps one day when Little Audrey saw something shiny in the road. She said, look, there’s a quarter in the road, if you’re quick you can go get it before that milk truck comes by! So Little Audrey’s brother ran out into the road, and the milk truck came by, and squished him flat. But Little Audrey just laughed and laughed, cause she knew it had only been a nickel.”

Sam said, “That’s a _joke?_ ”

“I can tell another,” Steve said. They’re wasting you in war propaganda, Bucky had used to tell him. Should get you on a show with Jack fuckin' _Benny_.

Sam made a strangled sound. “No, no, that’s fine, don’t feel obligated to! I think I’m sufficiently entertained now, anyway.” He padded over to the table, holding a carton of yogurt, and peered down at the disemboweled file on the kitchen table. “What’re you working on?”

Steve tapped on the relevant sheets of paper without looking up at Sam. “Brain scans. I’m hardly a scientist, but I was thinking—maybe if we could get these to someone who would know how to, we could see if, maybe—”

“Reverse the damage,” Sam said.

Steve swallowed. “Yeah.”

“Do you have Natasha’s list?” said Sam, instead of telling Steve it would be a hopeless cause. Steve took it out of his jacket pocket and handed it over. “We should probably organize these by country.”

Steve opened his mouth guiltily. “I was actually thinking about—”

“Rogers.” Sam patted his head like he was a lost dog. “These are not in this order for any crucial reason. And. _You_ might have seventy years of backpay, but I still have student loans to pay off, so we are doing this the efficient way. I can plug this shit into Google Maps, I guess. Plus, that way we can figure out if they spell out _Suck my entire ass, Steven_ , or if Romanoff’s plotted a course for us that’s a giant global schlong, or whatever. Two birds with one stone.”

“I don’t think Natasha wrote this list,” Steve said, and then, “student loans?”

“Aw, man,” Sam said. “That’s a conversation for a later, less sober me.”

* * *

It was 1925, and he was scowling while Bucky helped pick him up after Tom O’Leary had knocked him down in the school yard; but no, it was 1933, and his heart was stuck in his throat even as he was saying, maybe we could—just for practice—I’ve never—; but no, it was 1940, and he was clinging to Bucky so tightly it hurt, and Bucky was saying, listen, Stevie, I gotta go, or I’ll do something stupid like kiss you, where everyone can see; but no, it was 1944, and he was picking Bucky up off that table in Kreischberg; but no, it was 1945, and his whole world was falling into a frozen ravine; but no, it was 2014, and he was 28 or 95 or 25, staring into the face of the person who used to be his best friend, and for the first time in almost 70 years, he didn’t want to die.

He woke up choking, gasping and forcing air into his lungs, chest heaving. He knew the memory wasn’t real, but he couldn’t stop imagining the freezing water pouring into the cabin of the Walküre, filling his mouth and nose and ears. The reality was that he’d hit his head on the console as soon as the nose of the plane made contact with the ocean waves.

The reality was that he hadn't been thinking at all.

“Fuck,” Steve mumbled. His shield was leaning against the arm of the couch; he picked it up. The weight was comforting in his hands.

He could hear the muffled sound of Sam snoring in the next room over. Steve leaned back, setting the shield on his lap like a blanket, and thought about how, if he closed his eyes, it would be almost like bivouacking in the European Theatre, tents gathered in a crooked semi-circle. The faint scent and dim glow of Morita’s cigarette while he was on watch. The familiar silhouette of his and Bucky’s boots lined up side by side inside the tent flap.

Something in his pocket crinkled when he moves. The envelope from the nightstand.

Steve pulled it out; in the faint light coming through the window, he could barely make out the words.

** Генерал Армии Василий Карпов **   
** Head of Special Section Department X (ОТДЕЛ X) **   
** TOP KGB (КГБ) CLEARANCE ONLY **

Проект: Зимний Солдат—   
Июнь 1954

Parsifal has proven his worth tenfold: Volkov was right to entrust him with this task. The schematics he provided two months past were revolutionary — our science team finished a working prototype and attached it to the Subject without incident. With the new appendage in place, viable, and mobile, clearance was given for our team to begin work on the Winter Soldier Project. (The name is Volkov’s little joke — the Americans had their Captain America, their super-soldiers and their nuclear warheads, but all we Russians have is our winter. There is not the super-soldier alive who could withstand a Russian winter, not even Herr Schmidt himself.)

It has long been my plan to turn this American symbol back against our enemies. As you know, he was a blank slate when we found him; the doctors assessed the damage sustained in the fall and determined the amnesia was a result of severe concussion and brain stem injury.

Although Zola administered his own serum over a year previously, he had been uncertain of the results. (A pity Zola himself will not be able to lend his mind to this project! — but then again, American protection for a Swiss scientist living in Austria during the war is not a thing to throw away without a second thought.) I believe that the healing process was slowed by the state of severe hypothermia he was in when our Soviet scouts found him.

He may have been no aid to developing our own serum, but he will still be a valuable tool, in the right hands.

Well. That had answered a question Steve had been losing sleep over since 1943. Zola had given Bucky the serum, or some version of it, in the laboratory at the Kreischberg factory.

The rest of it was—

Soviet scouts.

Steve squeezed his eyes shut and gripped the edges of the shield.

The patrols that had been sent out to look for the body—the ones Col. Phillips had assured him would bring Bucky home for a proper burial—

How far back had HYDRA had its roots in SHIELD? Before SHIELD had even been founded? The thought of Zola’s hands on Bucky made Steve feel like he was going to vomit. Had Howard known about this? Had _Peggy?_

Most of the people he'd used to know had, at least, gone peacefully, surrounded by family and friends. If the mission reports were to be believed, Howard—and Maria—hadn’t been so lucky.

Steve forced his hands to release their grip before he broke his own fingers from the pressure; he couldn’t afford to waste the time letting his bones knit themselves back together. He'd broken all the bones of both his hands almost every day, in the first few weeks after he'd first started using the shield.

Peggy had been the one to convince him not to go after—

Steve had to physically force himself to inhale before he made himself pass out. He thought, Peggy had been the one to convince him not to go along on the search mission, after—

The incident at the Brenner Pass.

Steve thought: if I opened my eyes, I’d see him standing there.

The worst part was that he could picture it. So vividly it made his throat ache.

Maybe Peggy hadn't known, then. Maybe she had. And maybe it just didn't fucking matter.

The biographies he’d managed to read had mostly drawn on the quotation Erskine had apparently written down somewhere: _I don’t like bullies. I don’t care where they’re from_. They didn’t call him a pacifist, but they didn’t call him a jingoistic maniac either. Steve thought, somewhere in the part of his brain that was still lucid amidst the sheer volume of anger he was feeling, that he’d almost rather he didn’t feel bad about Natasha’s brand of wet work.

He imagined pulverizing Arnim Zola’s puggish face with his bare fists until it was nothing more than a pulpy mess of blood and brains, and felt a bit better.

You know, it gets easier, Bucky had written, in a letter that was never going to be sent. Killing, I mean.

Steve curled his fingers around the edge of the shield again and thought about how Alexander Pierce had been given more than he deserved, even in the end. Steve wouldn’t have awarded him the absolving relief of a quick death.

* * *

“Schoonebeek,” Sam said slowly, trying it out for size. He squinted dubiously at the list. “Well, the GPS _says_ we’re in Emmen, and I’m probably pronouncing everything wrong but whatever, so I guess the next thing on the agenda is... trying to find the oil field?”

Steve opened the side car door to retrieve his shield from the singular duffel bag Natasha had left them. “If things go south, you get the hell out and don’t worry about me.”

“Trust me, I’ll book it before you can say ‘genetically engineered super-soldier stamina machine,’” Sam promised. He had his phone out again, scrolling through news headlines. “Speaking of which, the media really is bending over backwards to avoid saying the words _Nazi_ or _fascism_ outright, huh. I get that this Pierce guy was pretty good at hiding his secret genocidal tendencies under a thickly spread layer of patriotic ends-justify-the-means bullshit, but God damn.”

“Are you surprised?”

Sam considered that for a moment, mulling it over. “No. Nah, I probably should be, I guess, but look, man, I’m black. I’m kinda used to the rest of the world not getting it. Besides, when you’ve just been walloped across the head with a spade, you’re gonna worry less about calling a spade a spade, and more about tending to your goose egg, y’know? Doesn’t make it okay, obviously, but this is a big shock. Most of the people alive today weren’t around for the first wave of Nazis. Did it surprise _you_ _?_ ”

Steve said, “In 1939, when Hitler invaded Poland, I started saving money to go to Europe and join the fight. We didn’t declare war until two years later, until _our_ country got bombed and suddenly it was _our_ problem. But people needed help in 1939, people needed help in 1940, and people needed help before that, back in ’32, when Hitler started gaining real power. But America didn’t get involved until _we_ were threatened. So no, it didn’t surprise me. For me,” he said, “it’s only been a few years since the last war.”

BORN AT THE END OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR, AND DECLARED M.I.A. AT THE END OF THE SECOND, STEVE ROGERS WAS A MAN DEFINED BY WAR, the Smithsonian exhibit had declared, like it had been some sort of accomplishment on his part. Steve could remember hiding in the darkened viewing room, watching grainy footage flicker past on the screen, while an unfamiliar voice had monotonized his life.

“When we get back from bushwhacking it in the Netherlands,” Sam said carefully, “you should really come and chat with some of the folks in my VA group."

Steve frowned.

"Not just cause I think you’d like ’em, but cause I think they’d understand what you’re saying. Garcia’s been out for half a decade and she’s still dealing with this sort of thing, even therapied to the hilt. Plus,” Sam said, raising his eyebrows meaningfully, “her wife makes one _killer_ gumbo, and you haven’t lived until you’ve tried some authentic Creole gumbo.”

“Well,” said Steve, and smiled. “I guess I haven’t lived yet.”

* * *

The actual takedown of the base was more or less a pantomime of routine procedure: they went in guns blazing (in Sam’s case) and shield at the ready (in Steve’s case), and managed to take out the first wave of guards primarily with the factor of surprise. Steve slammed the edge of the shield into the backs of skulls, kicked ankles and shins until the HYDRA goons crumpled, and went for weak spots the way Peggy had taught him—eyes, fingers, groin, solar plexus, throat.

Dirty tactics, the kind of fighting technique no one would expect from the likes of Captain America.

It was refreshing, to be back in the game, Steve realized vaguely. It hurt, but it was a good kind of hurt, like going at it on the bags until every muscle in his body felt liquid and worn out.

Steve grabbed the shield from where it had pinned a HYDRA operative’s arm to the cement floor. The operative screamed and passed out when Steve yanked the shield out with a terrible noise that he knew was the crunching of shattered arm bones.

He should probably have felt sorry.

He didn’t.

“Damn,” Sam announced, brushing gravel fragments off the knees of his blue jeans, “the tiny, angry Natasha that lives in the back of my head just jumped the shark, so I think it’s safe to say we did exactly what the real Natasha told us _not_ to do.”

“Job’s not done yet,” Steve said grimly, and scanned the room.

On the surface level, it appeared impressively more or less legitimate, except for the distinctive HYDRA insignia on each agent’s uniform—there were blueprints of the oil field and its associated machinery, each stamped with the red-and-yellow shell that had used to be Royal Dutch.

Most of the HYDRA agents hadn’t even been armed. And none of them had tried to radio for backup. Steve narrowed his eyes, thinking.

There was a map of the building on one wall. “Here,” he said, gesturing. “Wikipedia said this place began production in 1947, just after the war. Assuming that HYDRA built this base the same way they built their others from around that time, what we’re looking for should be...” He trailed his finger across the map. “Aha. Right here.”

“Not that I don’t trust your judgement, man,” said Sam, gingerly stepping over an unconscious Nazi and doing an awkward pirouette when his boot snagged in the strap of a discarded safety helmet, “but, uh, where exactly is ‘right here’ for those of us who _weren’t_ casing HYDRA club houses in the forties?”

“The laboratory,” said Steve. He was 25 again, underdressed and terrified, because a suicide mission was better that trying to live without— “It’s where they kept everything of value.”

* * *

The hallway curved sharply a few times, making Steve grateful for his photographic memory; the doors were labeled with frustratingly uninformative signs: A01. A02. A03. A04, all the way down the alphabet to E87, which bore a small, neat placard declaring that room the home of the DUIZENDPOOTPROJECT.

“What the hell,” Sam muttered, and kicked the door open.

A room full of oil field workers stared back at him, eyes wide with surprise. Half of them were wearing grease-stained coveralls and bewildered expressions; the other half were holding clipboards and smartphones.

“ _Do something,_ ” Sam hissed, elbowing Steve pointedly in the ribs.

Steve said, eloquently, “Um. Where’s the bathroom?”

“Kapitein Amerika!” someone shouted, brandishing a gun that had appeared out of seemingly nowhere, and the room dissolved summarily into pandemonium.

Steve said, “Oh, fuck me,” and launched himself into the fray.

Fighting a bizarrely heavily armed HYDRA squadron with nothing but his shield and his civilian clothes was, once again, strangely calming. While dodging bullets, knives, punches, and electric-blue blasts from something spiky that looked suspiciously Asgardian, his mind was finally clear enough to focus only on the task at hand. He kicked and deflected and rolled and spun around, the shield ricocheting off a piece of machinery with a spray of sparks before smashing into the back of someone’s skull, and it was like everything else had been stripped away, the impossible weight briefly lifted from his shoulders, a scoliotic Atlas.

The adrenaline carried him through the room, and he barely noticed when the gunshots and clanging and satisfying _thud_ and _whump_ of bodies hitting the ground had finished.

Sam approached him carefully, favoring his left leg. There was an assault rifle in one hand that he hadn’t had at the start of the skirmish. “You okay, man?”

“Check if any of them are still conscious while I sweep for information,” Steve said, instead of answering.

Sam frowned, but Steve was already moving towards the table in the center of the room, shuffling through the paper documents now scattered across its surface. Oil field statistics—calculations of proven reserves—groundwater levels—

And there, underneath a topographical land map, a slim folder labeled CENTIPEDE PROJECT.

A post-it note paper-clipped to the front of the folder said, _From Lviv—file contents immediately_. Steve flipped it open and glanced through the papers inside: nothing jumped out at him immediately, so he closed the folder and tucked it under his arm, turning back to survey the room.

Sam had located at least one HYDRA agent who was slowly recovering consciousness, looking groggy and furious.

“Wie zijn jullie in godsnaam?” the agent demanded, his eyes flickering warily between the two of them. “Amerikanen. Who the shitting hell are you?”

“I’m Captain America,” Sam said, and waved with the hand not pointing the barrel of the assault rifle at the agent’s chest. “Hi.”

“We need information,” Steve said, crowding into the agent’s space. He did his best to loom menacingly, channeling Natasha’s fomenting poise. “What were your men doing here? How long has this been a HYDRA base of operations?”

“Cut off one head, two more shall take its place,” the agent said, glaring.

“Awfully smug for a guy whose nuts are within stomping range,” Sam pointed out. “Aw, is this your first day on the job? Or was it bring your loser friend to work day?”

“Sam,” Steve said.

“Cut me some slack, man, this is my first ever Nazi interrogation.”

“We’re not interrogating anyone,” Steve said. “We just want answers.” He folded his arms, trying for the intimidating scowl. “Who do you report to?”

“I work for Shell,” the agent growled.

“Shell can suck my dick, I know what y’all did to those birds,” Sam retorted. “If you work for a gas station, why’s there a HYDRA patch on your uniform?”

The agent just glared stubbornly, mouth shut tight.

“Also, you were just talking about cutting off one head and two more growing back,” Sam prompted.

So helpful.

“Cut off one head,” the agent parroted, blood trickling from his nose.

“Yeah, yeah. Pretty sure we just did that,” Sam said dismissively. “Did none of you guys get the memo that HYDRA got doxxed? Internal communication, she ain’t what it used to be. Aren’t they supposed to kill themselves if you catch ’em alive?”

This last was directed at Steve.

“Well, they always used to have cyanide pills, for when they got captured," Steve offered, caving. "It was a real bitch to wrangle during undercover recon. They still liked to sneak around, though. We had to be always ready—I remember, there was this one time, where I actually shot a Nazi in my pyjamas.”

Sam's eyebrows jumped. "In your _pyjamas?_ "

"Yeah," Steve said. He shrugged. "How the fella got in my pyjamas, I guess I'll never know."

Sam made a strangled coughing sound. “Today’s generation of Nazis: more reasonably afraid of death?”

The HYDRA agent laughed, the sound breaking off into a series of hacking coughs.

“No, Captain,” the agent spat, grinning crookedly, “we have just found more... _effective_ ways to ensure we will not reveal any... crucial information.”

Steve understood what he meant a moment before Sam got it. He said, “Fuck!” and stomped on the man’s wrist, hard, forcing his hand to open. The wristwatch detonator rolled out of the agent’s palm and across the floor, beeping faintly.

35, 34, 33...

“Too late, Captain!—at least your death will be swift; more than you deserve—”

28, 27, 26...

“We gotta get the hell out of here!” Sam yelled, grabbing at the front of Steve’s jacket, breaking him out of his stupor. "Come _on_ , man!"

Steve—thinking inanely of Peggy telling him that trying to get him to change his mind was like trying to walk through a solid wall—snatched up the Centipede Project file, tucked Sam as close to his body as he could, positioned the shield in front of him, and ran directly towards the brick wall nearest to them, the HYDRA agent’s laughter echoing behind him.

* * *

Heroes aren’t made like they used to be, these days. We don’t need someone who’s too scared to stand up for our God given rights, we need someone like Captain America, who’s not afraid to defend himself, protect his country, and support our troops.

Some people like to think that Captain America would have been on the side of the kids who can’t handle the way the world is without a Safe Space. But that isn’t true.

Captain America was from a time when every man knew his place, when it was a honor to serve for God and country, when civilians stood for the Pledge of Allegiance, when we all respected the flag and what it stood for. Captain America was from a time when men were men and women were women, and people were happy that way. Captain America loved _America_ , it’s even in the name.

You can whine and complain all you want about your fantasy world where Captain America is some thin skinned pansy who thinks liberals know how to save our country when they’ve historically only made it worse, but the rest of us know the truth.

Captain America lived and died for his country, and we should be proud of that. One Nation, Under God.

** “Captain ’MURICA: Common misconceptions about Captain America,” originally published by _Conservative News Magazine_ , 2010. **

Retrieved October 8th 2014 by an anonymous user [IP BLOCKED].

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sources and references round-up can be found [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pBDOfZDeL7HyiRrvYYm8Ue0pe44g9kX8xBj4egtBq7A/edit?usp=sharing).


	6. Old wounds

* * *

“Ciao,” said Natasha’s voice, tinny and muffled through the phone. “Got sitrep?”

“Sam’s texting you the itinerary right now,” Steve said.

"Mhm," Natasha said.

Steve winced. “We, uh, kind of... blew up... an oil field. Unintentionally! And technically it wasn’t even _our_ fault—”

“It was HYDRA,” Sam chimed in, “some sort of suicide bomb or somethin’ like that—”

Silence. Then Natasha said, “So when I told you, Rogers, that you wouldn’t know subtlety if it bit you in the dick...”

Sam crowed with laughter, and Steve gave him a wounded look.

“Okay, I got the itinerary. If you want my advice, I’d say head to Brasil next. The weather’s bound to be humid and miserable this time of year, which is why it’ll be perfect. Everyone will be too busy scratching their mosquito bites to notice a couple of Americans crashing through the jungle like the offspring of a bull elephant and a Panzer Maus.”

“Great,” Sam said, sounding like he meant the exact opposite. “I hate to say it, but I think I’d almost rather be freezing my balls off in the ass end of nowhere hunting down Russian ghosts.”

“A man after my own heart,” Natasha said. “But seriously, head to Brasil. If nothing else, you’ll be able to pick up Sam’s birthday present.”

“Sam’s _what?_ ” said Steve, at the same time Sam said, “How the hell did you know my birthday’s next month?”

Steve said, “Your birthday’s next month?”

Sam shook a warning finger in Steve’s direction. “Oh, no. No, no. I know that face. That’s the Stupid Unnecessary Idea face. You are _not_ throwing me a party, and you sure as hell don’t have to get me anything.”

“It’s only fair,” Steve protested, smarting from the knowledge that Sam hadn’t told him, “since I dragged you halfway around the world on a wild goose cha—”

“Boys, boys,” Natasha interrupted. “Marital squabbling later, sitrep now. If you need additional supplies, I’ll be honest and say your best bet for untraceable cavalry is going to be Stark. Steve, I know you’re not fond of the guy, but he’s got the advantage of being a white, male billionaire with a lavish lifestyle; no one would bat an eyelash if he decided to buy, say, a couple dozen M67s, or two tons of VapoRub, or a baby’s first IED kit. Just make sure you call from a burner phone, not your cell with all your contacts and info. And hey, even if you don’t want to hike through the Brazilian jungles, there are plenty of lovely little touristy spots down by the coastline. Swim in the ocean. Sun bathe. Get a nice tan.”

“Steve can’t even tan, he just burns. Irish,” Sam said. Steve shot him a dirty look.

“One of my covers was a seasoned reviewer on TripAdvisor,” said Natasha, sounding almost wistful. “I should visit Espírito Santo again someday... it’s a nice little state.”

“Let me guess,” Steve said. “You’re not going to tell us where you are or what you’re doing, but we’re supposed to do exactly what you tell us?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Rogers, but I’m not exactly Nick.”

“No,” Steve agreed. “Nick would at least have the decency to act like he regretted lying to my face.”

Natasha clucked her tongue. “This isn’t the time for this conversation, and I think you know that as well as I do. Go to Brasil... Conceição da Barra, maybe. Spend some time on the Google."

Sam guffawed. "The Google?"

"She's making fun of me, ignore her," Steve said.

"Bake Sam a red velvet cake with sprinkles in the frosting. I think you’ll find what you’re looking for. Well,” she said, “not _that_ thing you’re looking for. But something you’ll enjoy, nonetheless. Ta-ta!”

After Natasha hung up and Steve spent a few minutes contemplating just crushing the cell phone and leaving it somewhere in the middle of the Netherlands, Sam said, “She knows my favorite kind of _cake_. That woman is a menace, Rogers. If I swung that way, I’d wife her up in a heartbeat. A _heartbeat_.”

“I dunno if Natasha’s the marrying type,” Steve said.

He was still pissed off at her. Following each lead had only brought him even more strings to pull on, more avenues to explore. More dead ends leading nowhere.

He glanced over at Sam. “Also, why are there so many baseball euphemisms for sex things?”

* * *

schoonebeek oil field  
About 80,870 results (0.93 seconds)

Foul play suspected in **Schoonebeek oil field** explosion,  
police say

CNN – 13 minutes ago

Evidence of equipment tampering and possible  
intentional detonation has been revealed, according to  
local Emmen law enforcement. The **oil** **field** was part…

Dozens confirmed dead, missing after massive  
explosion at Netherlands **oil** drilling site

BBC – 2 hours ago

The explosion could be heard and felt for… reports  
saying the **Schoonebeek** drilling site produced over  
3,000 barrels of **oil** per day, bringing in a tremendous  
amount of…

Son-in-law of Russian **oil** baron Ivan Volkov among those  
confirmed dead in **Schoonebeek** **oil** explosion

Euronews – 1 hours ago

The explosion claimed the lives of over three dozen  
workers at the Royal Dutch Shell **oil** **field** last… Volkov  
has not commented on the tragedy, with his PR team  
 **fielding** questions during…

* * *

I’m like a bad penny. Can’t be rid of me, Bucky used to say, whenever the inevitability of shipping out was more present than usual. You know me, kid, I’ll be stuck in your shoe when you’re old and gray.

Just you wait.

Back then he hadn’t thought he’d live to see twenty-five. It still felt stupid to miss the knowledge you’d die young.

“The thing is, I don’t really want to go back,” Steve said, and Sam looked up from his phone, startled but attentive. “I’ve read enough history to know that things didn’t really get better for everyone... even if I’d survived long enough to grow old, I’d never have been able to settle down and raise a family. The only person who’d have looked at me twice would have died in Italy, with me thinking he was enjoying a nice balmy vacation in Liverpool.”

They hadn't talked about it outright, back then. But both of them knew Steve wasn't likely to make it to 1950, much less 2015.

Steve shook his head. “So say I got a second chance. I still volunteer for Erskine’s experiment, because it’s the only way I can get to war and save—and save Bucky. Maybe we’re a bit too careless and get ourselves blue ticketed, and shipped back home. I’m out of a job since the WPA won't want me with the blue card on my record, Gruenwald won’t have room for Buck behind the counter, and we still wouldn’t have any money. He had the option to go home after Kreischberg, did you know that?”

“No,” Sam said quietly.

“I read it in his letters, after. He never let me read those, the ones he didn’t send, but I figured, what the hell, don’t die wondering. So I read all of ’em."

Sam nodded.

"There were only about a half dozen or so, mostly from before the 107th got ambushed in Azzano. But anyway, after we made it back from Austria, Phillips gave the 107th an opportunity to take the medical discharge and go home shell shocked but heroes. Some of ’em took it. But he, but Bucky didn’t."

Steve swallowed around the lump in his throat. "I didn’t get to see him at all the day Phillips offered the discharge option, but that was the day he wrote the last letter, and he said, ‘catch me a month ago and I’d have been back in Brooklyn with you before you’d even started to miss me.’ If I hadn’t stayed on, he would have left. But if I had never showed up, half the 107th would have died in a Nazi prison camp.

"So there's no good way out, no matter what I do." Steve smiled; it felt more like a grimace. “Just as well there isn’t way to go back, I guess.”

“You’re still damn lucky,” Sam said. “Like it or not, you’re getting a second shot right now.”

“They kept him in a bank vault,” Steve said. “When he wasn’t _in use_ , they froze him and stuffed him in a locked chamber for storage. Only took him out for missions and brainwashing I guess. Can you imagine that? There’s a part of me that wants to keep going and never stop until every last one of them is dead.”

The wipes had started in the 1970s, according to the original file. Around the time the Winter Soldier had somehow managed to escape and vanish from the grid for weeks at a time. Steve wondered if that was what Natasha had alluded to—trailing him to old familiar haunts.

He probably hadn’t even known what he was looking for.

“As your friend, I would absolutely stand behind you all the way. Maybe a good couple steps behind,” Sam said. “But as a licensed counselor specializing in PTSD of veterans who’ve seen combat... I gotta say, man, there are healthier ways to channel all this shit.”

“I’ll make a fucking—clay pot,” Steve said, suddenly feeling almost hysterical, “or—or _paint trees_ , I don’t know—”

“Hey, I know you liked those Bob Ross videos I showed you, don't front. And I was thinking something more along the lines of actually going to therapy,” said Sam. He steamrollered over Steve’s derisive snort, unbothered. “Look, there’d be a conflict of interest if I were to fill those shoes, and I wouldn’t bring that upon you. Besides, it would be hellish for _me_ , and I’m more interested in keeping my lines straight. But you know you’re always welcome at the VA, and I can get you an intake appointment with any of the best therapists in the Dupont area. If you’re worried about being recognized, well, let me introduce you to a little somethin’ called client confidentiality.”

“I don’t know if therapy would help,” Steve said.

He didn’t think talking about it would be able to solve anything, even assuming Sam could have found someone who would be able to handle the situation.

Sam nodded. “Think about it,” he said, “no pressure, and I do mean that. I know how hard it can be to reopen old wounds, even if you gotta to let ’em heal up. Door’s always open, you know that.”

“I know it’s an option,” Steve said.

Sam nodded again. “Good.”

“It’s just,” Steve said. “If... _when_ he comes in, do you think... something, anything—”

“I think,” said Sam, choosing each word slowly, “ _if_ he decides to come in, there’s a good chance that there will be people who can help. I’m no neurosurgeon, but I know what a brain damaged beyond repair looks like, and those scans didn’t show it. If it’s a question of will he ever remember everything, well, I don’t know. I got guys who can’t remember ten, twenty years of their lives, but they manage anyway, y’know? I don’t want to give you false hope, because there’s no way to know, but if he wants it, there’s ways to help. We’ve got your common-garden CBT, sure, and we’ve also got EMDR for trauma patients and abuse victims, and we’ve even got physical rehab for soldiers who need to recover control of their own bodies. The point is, there’s a hell of a lot of good people out there who’ll be willing to try their damnedest to help your man, and that’s a promise.”

Steve nodded, and closed his eyes.

“Hey. Hey,” Sam said. He wrapped his arm around Steve’s shoulders. “If he doesn’t want to be found, I don’t think he’d ever be found. These little clues we keep stumbling across? I don’t think those are accidents. He’s been keeping an eye on us, Rogers. He’ll let you know when he’s ready.”

* * *

**Letter from Sgt. Barnes to Steve Rogers, December 7th, 1942.**

> Well you know you can’t have Abbott without Costello, & nobody wants to see Costello twice. It’s sub zero1 here so I won’t bore you with the megillah2 lest I coil up my ropes3 without even seeing the front, & besides I can’t tell you most of it. If you have a little extra time I wish you’d send some cheese cake,4 since I doubt you could fit Mae West in an envelope. If not that, then at least a picture of you & the girls (!!) You’re a real rusty hen5 but I think you fit right in anyway. Give my love to Ma & Becca & remember it’s the pen that’s bad, don’t lay the blame on me.6 Yours, Buck.

1A slang term meaning “terrible.” Barnes could also be remarking on the weather.   
2Details. Soldiers were not allowed to mention troop positions, strategy, or plans in letters; the censors meticulously scanned each letter before sending it.   
3A slang term meaning “to die.”   
4Barnes refers to pin-ups.   
5Usually a slang term for an unattractive woman. The “girls” are likely Barnes’s mother, Winnifred, and his sister, Rebecca.   
6Barnes quotes the popular wartime ditty “It’s a long, long way to Tipperary.”

**Letter from Sgt. Barnes to Steve Rogers, May 29th, 1943.**

> It’s a bum rap that some of the fellas are bucking for a section eight1 but I’ll see you in a week anyhow, Laurel.2 After months of battery acid & wash, I don’t care how cheesy Ma’s dinners are!3 Now that it’s warm again the mosquitos are of course trying to rub us out before we ever see combat. If the mosquitos get any more of my blood in em they’ll start sending me a card on Father’s day. I’ll see you soon – pass along my love to Ma & the others – I’ll bring you home a surprise when I roll out.4 Yours, Buck.

1“It’s a shame that some of the soldiers are trying to get discharged.”   
2Barnes refers jokingly to Rogers and himself as the popular comedy duo Laurel and Hardy. Barnes returned from Camp McCoy on June 7th, 1943, for a weeklong furlough in New York City.   
3“Battery acid” referred to coffee, and “cheesy” meant “cheap.”   
4Here Barnes refers to his Sergeant’s chevrons, which he received shortly before this letter was written.

_ Reprinted with permission from the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, 2014. _

* * *

“Guess what’s for dinner,” Bucky crowed.

He was jostling Steve repeatedly with his elbow, not relenting even when Steve swiped halfheartedly at the offending appendage. “C’mon and guess! You get three guesses, chump, but the answer, whatever it is, it ain’t gonna be true love.”

“Can’t live on that,” Steve muttered.

He had been trying for almost an hour to unstick his boot laces from the coating of mud caked on everything, with no luck. Bucky was still jittering around next to him, frenetic. Steve sighed in Bucky's general direction, but he gave in anyway. “Okay, okay, I’ll bite. Is it Spam?”

Bucky made a popping sound like he’d fired a blank. “Sure is, Cap! Spam, Spam, and more God damned Spam. If I eat any more Spam I’ll go fucking blind.”

“Aw, it ain’t that bad,” piped up Dugan, who was sat on the ground and tossing scraps of kindling into the muddy hole he and Falsworth had dug, hoping for a light. “You know what they say—”

And, together, they all said, “Spam is just ham that didn't pass its physical.”

Bucky gave Steve a meaningful look, and Steve said, “Don't _even_.”

“Wasn't gonna!”

“Hey Jimmy,” Dugan said, “toss us some of your fucking smokes, I know you got ’em.”

“Yeah, your _sister_ gave ’em to me, now quit fuckin’ calling me Jimmy, Dum Dum,” Bucky retorted.

“Hey,” said Steve, faking affront. Bucky grinned toothily at him.

“I saw you in those reels with those USO dames, pal,” he said. “Never knew you to be a share crop back home, but I guess if there’s only one of you and, hell, a good three fuckin’ hundred of ’em, six hundred gams if you do the arithmetic—”

“Barnes, roll up your flaps and hand over your fuckin’ smokes already,” Morita said.

Falsworth guffawed. “Hey, and leave the Cap alone! And watch it, since he’s your CO now, technically, and all that jive.”

“Buck smokes Camels, anyhow,” Steve said, feeling wicked.

Dugan wrinkled his nose. “I’d still take a gander at ’em, even if they were... fucking asthma cigarettes,” he admitted, rueful. He gave up trying to start a fire and stood, wincing with each movement. “Ah, fuckin’ _Christ_. I’d rather have a good six hours of shuteye than six hours with Vivien Leigh, at this point.”

“Reckon you got a better chance with Vivien Leigh,” Gabe said thoughtfully.

* * *

It was easy to miss the easy camaraderie. Steve might not have missed the long drudge through mud and rocks, the backbreaking trek across the countries, the hours spent immobile and silent in trenches, barely daring to breathe, much less take a moment to piss or light a cigarette or catch a quick nap. But he missed the feeling of being in good company, crowded in a crooked little circle swapping stories and sharing songs, working together as a seamless organism.

It hadn’t all been easy going; he’d had to fight tooth and nail to keep Jones and Morita in the unit.

At first, Col. Phillips had branded them the 107th Tactical Team, and shoved them towards the nearest stage.

(You know you’ve got some damn fine men, Col. Phillips had said, shaking his head, but that’s the _law_ , son. Steve had told him: I decide what Captain America does, and Captain America wants these men at his back. Col. Phillips shook his head and muttered about a right pack of damn fools, but he’d got the approval. As long as Jones and Morita didn’t officially fight alongside them, they could be in as many damned backup photographs as Captain fucking America decided.)

No, he didn’t miss all of it. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Sam it wouldn’t fix anything, to find a way back; he wouldn’t have risked any more of his men, not for something that wasn’t a done deal. He wouldn’t have risked Bucky.

He remembered—walking out of the makeshift tent after a mission debriefing with Col. Phillips and Peggy, and Bucky had waved him over to where he and some of the others had been taking potshots at empty tins of Spam and coffee containers.

“Check it out,” Bucky hollered, then lined up his rifle, bracing himself, and took a shot.

It was obvious he’d gotten Howard to tinker with it. Bucky’s rifle was a sleek little M1941 Johnson that he called _Sweetheart_ —

(“Sneaking off to play with your Johnson all the time,” Dugan liked to tease him, whenever Bucky would grab a spare scrap of oilcloth and a tin of cosmoline to strip down the gun, “go on and step off the plank with her already, Jiminy Cricket—”)

—but Howard had added a scope somehow. The already dented Spam tin flew off the post, and Steve whooped along with the others.

“Finally got her going more or less straight,” Bucky said, grinning. He patted the barrel of the rifle lovingly. “She’s my steady, aincha, Sweetheart?”

“You love that gat like your old woman,” Jones grumbled, but he was grudgingly admiring the scope with the rest of them. Bucky hadn’t shut up about the irregular aim for the past week and a half.

“Looks like all that ass-kissing finally paid off,” Falsworth commented. “You got Stark to gussy ’er up, Barnes?”

“Go fuck yourself, Monty,” Bucky said cheerfully.

Steve thought: it was easy to miss it, if you didn’t look at the bigger picture. He couldn’t imagine a world after the war. He couldn’t imagine living in a world without Bucky, without the steady compass that was the two of them. He couldn’t imagine taking up the shield and donning the costume to tour with the USO girls, not then and not now. He thought: this is the only outcome I know how to handle. He thought: I don’t know what I’d do if I fucked this up again.

* * *

They blew up another base in Osnabrück—already gutted, empty, computers wiped, machinery swinging uselessly from the ceiling—and then it was on to Kyiv, to Budapest, to Nouakchott, and then, in Conceição da Barra, Espírito Santo, Brasil, underneath the remains of a derelict schoolyard hidden in the middle of the forest, they found something.

It was a plastic crate. Or, more accurately, a collection of plastic crates, faded tarps thrown over most of them.

Steve cautiously tugged the tarp off the nearest crate; it was full of what looks like old newspapers. Another was stacked with stapled-together papers mercifully in a language he knows. They said MISSION REPORTS and CENTIPEDE PROJECT across the front.

“This shit is ancient,” Sam muttered. He held up a maroon folder stamped with RELATÓRIO DE PROGRESSO 1990-2001 on it. Steve raised his eyebrows. “I mean, for HYDRA, dumbass. I know _you’re_ an old geezer.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what half this stuff is,” Steve said, only partially playing along.

He peered into another crate, this one containing identical copies of notebooks bound in black leather, each with a dull red star in the center of the cover. Steve flipped through one of them; it was empty, pages blank.

Sam started to look into one of the farther crates, then stopped dead. “Holy shit,” he breathed. “Holy shit holy shit holy motherfucking cocksucking shit, _Steve_ , look—”

Folded up neatly inside the crate, looking surprisingly none the worse for wear, were Sam’s wings.

“I think,” Sam said slowly, reverently, “we found Natasha’s birthday present.”

* * *

WP: Mr. Roth, thank you for agreeing to sit down and talk to us today.

AR: Oh, well, it’s no trouble at all, young man. I’d take any chance to talk about an old friend, especially at a time like this.

WP: All right. Let’s start with a simple question. How did you know Steve Rogers?

AR: Well, I knew him before he was Captain America, of course. We were in an art class together — Steve had scraped together every penny to pay for that class, worked himself to the bone as a clerk and doing odd jobs here and there. He never would accept help from anyone, God knows I tried to offer what little I had. But back then he wasn’t the blond-haired Adonis he is in those pictures you got, no sir! He was just a stick-legged young dreamer with his head in the clouds and his hands forever drawing. He did the most stunning landscapes. Of course, all the other boys found out he could draw, so he got a bit of extra money doing pin-ups, y’know? It wasn’t all still lives and landscapes, if you get my drift.

WP: I think I do, yes. Could you talk a bit more about who Rogers was, as a person?

AR: He was the nicest fella I knew. Michael [Santiago, Roth’s longtime partner] won’t even be mad, he knows it’s true; we both said it! I mean, Michael didn’t get to know Steve that well, we were all so busy back then, and money was always so tight. And things were different back then, I never would have thought of using these labels, none of us would have, that wasn’t something we did. But with Steve, I always knew he would find some way to serve — not just in the Army, I mean, but serve the people. He never really cared about the Army — if the Post Office had been dedicated to protecting our freedom, he would have strapped on a mailbag and got down to work. It was always about the Dream, for Steve. I remember, oh... it must have been 1934, '35, in the middle of the Depression? I wasn't even 18 yet. There was no employment, no food, no heat or anything. There were kids as young as four or five standing in the lines at the soup kitchens all day, because everyone else in their family was out looking for work. We were lucky if we got fifty cents for a day's work — that was a good day, fifty cents. And Steve had the most awful hay fever, for the whole summer, and I remember — he and that friend of his, Bucky [James Barnes] had managed to find a couple of old half-rotten potatoes, maybe three or four, that we wrapped up in aluminium foil and stuck in the coals. It was me, Steve, and Barnes and his family — his mother and sister, I think his father was out looking for work, I don't remember. But I do remember how Barnes's baby sister, Rebecca [Proctor], she was crying because she was so hungry, and Steve gave her half of his dinner. Half a squishy old potato. But it was all we had. So you had this skinny little kid, maybe only 16 or 17, could barely breathe from the hay fever, and he gave half to that girl, because she was hungry. That was who Steve was.  He cared very much for everyone he met, no matter how young or old. Of course, later I found out that Barnes had tried to give Steve his portion, and Steve had refused like it was poisoned! It's a miracle he survived the 30s at all, really.  That comforts me, now that I’m in my sixties. I didn’t think I’d make it this far. So many of us didn't — but, well, here I am, still kicking.

WP: You mentioned a “dream”...

AR: The American Dream. That’s what it always was. But it wasn’t the way it is now — no, no, now it’s all about Reagan, and taxes, and pushing down those who aren’t so lucky. But back then, it was — well, it was all about surviving. Having a family, no matter what kind. Loving each other. Liberty, peace, equality — that kind of thing. Half the young men in New York were riding the rails looking for work, or breaking their backs for fifteen cents a day so they could have something to feed their families. And Steve, I remember when Steve and all the rest of us heard the news about Roosevelt's New Deal, all the public work programs and such. Steve and I both almost cried when the WPA [Works Progress Administration] made a comeback! I think if FDR hadn't rolled out the public work programs, Steve would have marched up to the White House and given the man a piece of his mind himself. Now, of course he was the sort of dreamer who was always going to die young. But he believed, he really did. No matter what. He believed the best of everyone.

WP: How do you think Rogers would have changed, if he’d lived?

AR: Oh, I don’t think he would have. Lived, I mean. If it hadn’t been winning the fight against the Nazis, he would have been shot protecting MLK [Dr., Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.], or protesting the war [in Vietnam], or the Missile Scare [Cuban Missile Crisis], or in Greensboro [at the sit-ins], something like that. Isn’t it F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote, ‘Show me a hero, and I’ll write you a tragedy’? That was Steve. He was always going to be larger than life.

WP: Larger than life?

AR: I suppose literally! None of us could have guessed what would happen to him, what with that government experimenting, all that. It was impossible. But I like to think that Steve would be proud of what I’m doing now. Proud that — that I survived. I like to think, wherever he is now, he knows I’m happy.

Archived [_Washington_ _Post_ interview with Arnold “Arnie” Roth, February 17 1981](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2014/04/13/read-the-interview-from-1981/), shortly before Roth’s death due to complications with AIDS.

_ (You visited this page on 08/03/2014.) _

* * *

“Hi,” said Natasha's voice, staticky and distant. “How’s the Nazi hunting been going?”

“Someone got a bit sidetracked trying to figure out if they could use a certain shield to crack open a God damn coconut, and ended up almost losing half a dozen fingers,” Sam said.

Steve said, “Sam, that was _you_.”

“Yeah? And? I didn’t say it wasn’t me, Rogers.”

Natasha said, “Well. I’ve got some news for you. First, you’re officially not the only ones hunting down the errant fascists anymore. And Steve, before you say anything stupidly hopeful, the only reason I know that is part of opsec right now and it’s staying that way. It’s entirely possible he’d be operating on an internal elimination procedure—it’s standard ops for organizations like HYDRA, so we can’t rule it out right off the bat.”

“Uh huh,” Sam said.

“Well,” Natasha amended. “It’s the same pattern I saw happening in December of ’91, that is.”

Steve said, “You think Bu— You think this is like what happened to the _Red Room?_ ”

“The Soviet Union, actually. Easy mistake. But I’ve got a gut feeling that tells me it’s more than that. This isn’t his revenge vacation, this is more like... a cat leaving little murder presents on your doorstep.”

“I wish,” Sam said, “you’d used literally any other phrase.”

“Aw, not a cat person? Pity. But look,” said Natasha. “This sort of thing? Taking down an entire organization, piece by piece, dismantling it from the inside, with everyone knowing he’s coming for them but not being able to do anything to stop him? This is what he was _made_ for, Steve. This is his entire purpose. During the Cold War, we had a theory. One agent, in the right place, at the right time, with the right skills, could be more effective than an army. Spetsnaz one-oh-one. Once the Soldier sets his eyes on you, the only thing you can do is pray, because there’s not a damn chance you’ll make it out alive.”

Steve thought: but I did. He thought: I fucked up his perfect record, how’s that feel, huh?

“So, what, we get home one day to find the President trussed up like a turkey on the front porch?” Sam asked, dubious. “Because I think we’ve got to establish a point where the line gets crossed, and we shift from Operation Find Bucky to Operation Slow The Hell Down And Let’s Talk About This, and I think that point was, oh, three explosions ago.”

“Yes,” Natasha agreed. “He’s been sending you a message, in his own way. It’s time you sent one back.”

* * *

And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.

[Ezekiel 25:17]

* * *

Natasha texted the next day: _CIA officially involved. Yay! don’t get into any black escalades or white vans. Text me (NOT s.c.) if you need emergency exfil mwah)))_ , and Sam read the message and snorted. “Piece of work, that one. I honestly can’t believe she didn’t notice the whole ‘SHIELD is HYDRA is SHIELD’ thing until it was all out there.”

Steve shrugged. He’d given up on trying to figure out if Natasha knew or not. He knew they needed her helping them, and that wasn’t going to happen if he knew she had stood by and let it all happen.

“I didn’t figure it out until the night Nick got shot, really,” Steve said.

“Yeah? That was when—what’s her name, Sharon? When she showed up, right?”

Steve said, “She said, ‘Foxtrot is down, he’s unresponsive,’ which caught my attention because we used to say _fox_. The dispatch asked her, they said, ‘Do you have a 20 on the shooter?’”

Sam closed his eyes and exhaled sharply through his nose. “Jesus.”

“Nick told me not to trust anyone,” Steve said. “I guess that lesson stuck with me more than most.”

Sam asked, “Does it scare you? Knowing he did all those things.”

Steve thought about it for a moment. He thought: if it had been me. He thought: if I could go back.

“No,” he said, finally. “It scares me to know that I don’t care. That scares the hell out of me.”

He thought: despite everything. He thought: if it had been me.

“He’s still the same person,” Steve said, determined to make Sam understand. “If anything, I’m the one who’s a different person.”

Steve Rogers might have been born in 1918, but Captain America had been born in 1943, in a laboratory.

 _Everything special about you came out of a bottle_ , Tony had told him, once. _You’re just like one of my machines, all juiced up and government-owned_ , Howard had said, once.

Sometimes he would look at Tony and see a kid in over his head, trying to handle something larger than anyone could have anticipated. Sometimes he would look at Tony and think: this man is supposed to be older than me.

Project INSIGHT.

The motherfucking thought police.

Stark Tech, of course. Fury hadn't lied about that part.

Small mercies, or something like that. But Steve was sick of making justifications for people who thought they know better, just because they were—wealthier, or more fortunate, or in charge of running the dog and pony show. He was sick of the malignant lie that was supposed to be a fiduciary.

“Nick was lying to me since the beginning, you know that?” he told Sam. “Even setting aside the little charade where he pretended it was still 1945. He told me, he said Peggy had died in 2007, that I had missed seeing her again by five years. But that wasn’t true, was it? She’s still alive. He had a whole story ready and everything... about how she’d gone peacefully, in her sleep, with her family around her... Took me a while of reading the _books_ people wrote about her, about _us_ , to convince myself anything about her was real. I almost didn’t believe it when I actually got to see her, then.”

He shook his head, remembering. “Of course, she saw me and thought it was 1943 again.”

Better hell with you than heaven without you, Bucky had used to say, when things were at their worst.

Steve thought: a line has no end. He thought: the world puts Captain America in a box that does not fit Steve Rogers.

Captain America versus Steve Rogers was a fight he kept on losing.

He said, “I’m tired of being Captain America.”

Sam said, “You don’t have to be, you know. You can be whoever you wanna be.”

Steve said, “Well, I _have_ always thought it would be kinda nice to have a cape.”

“What the hell, man,” Sam said, “you want a cape, we can get you a cape.”

* * *

The next safe house on Natasha’s list was in Ljubljana, near Prešeren Square and the Tromostovje. Steve felt jittery, disproportionate, his skin too tight and crawling. He kept thinking, maybe—a flash of metal in the crowd was someone pulling their keys from their pocket; a tourist walked by with shoulder-length hair and a ball cap; a woman’s blue coat caught his eye. The hair on the back of his neck prickled, and he thought, if I turned around—if I turned around, he’d be standing right behind me—

Steve thought: everyone I love is a ghost of some kind. He thought about Peggy, slowly losing her anchor. He thought about Dugan and Falsworth and Morita and Jones and Dernier, and Howard, and Col. Phillips, and Rebecca and Mrs. Barnes, and Mrs. Rosenthal’s three-legged old cat—God but she had loved that scrawny old thing, no matter how much it scratched her furniture and yowled demonically in the middle of the night—

He clutched Bucky’s file closer to his chest.

Everything felt slowed down, sluggish, like he was moving underwater.

Sam flopped on the double bed in the safe house’s single bedroom and looked up at Steve. “Find any more clues?”

Steve shrugged.

“Didn’t really look yet,” he admitted. He didn’t want to set the file down, suddenly absurdly confident that someone would break in and make off with it, and his last piece of Bucky would have vanished forever.

“Hey,” Sam said, gently. “You should get some sleep while you can. When’s the last time you actually slept? C’mon, I can guard all your info, and keep watch. You need to rest, super-soldier or no.”

Steve didn’t know how to say _I’m afraid if I sleep I’ll never wake up and I finally have something worth staying awake for_ , so he hummed noncommittally and sat down on the other side of the bed. He contemplated taking his boots off, but the effort required made it a herculean task. He laid down on his back and looked up at the ceiling. There were minuscule cracks spiderwebbing across the plaster.

There was a song stuck in his head that he hadn’t heard in seventy years: _five feet four he’s an artful little dodger, with a smile, a pretty smile_ , or at least that’s the way Bucky had used to sing it.

Bucky, he said. Buck. His eyes were closed; he could imagine Bucky lying on the too-soft mattress next to him, the steady rise and fall of his chest. They’ve been saying all sorts of shit, Buck. They’ve been saying you’re dead.

I’ve heard that, Bucky said, and smiled that charming smile. Six feet under, ghost story, Cold War zombie, that’s me. And you know what the best thing is about being a dead man, sweetheart?

Steve said, _yeah?_ and Bucky leaned in until he was hovering just above Steve, head tilted to the side and eyebrows furrowed like he was trying to figure out what’s wrong, mouth just brushing Steve’s. He caught Steve’s lower lip in his teeth.

The best thing about being dead, Bucky said, is this: I can do whatever I goddamn want.

* * *

“Sleep okay?” asked Sam, when Steve made his way into the kitchen. Sam was drinking orange juice from the carton and scrolling through his phone; Steve made a face at him.

“Like a baby,” Steve lied.

He’d woken up briefly convinced he was in Vinegar Hill, so certain of it that he’d rolled over already feeling giddy and full, like champagne, still half asleep and expecting to find Bucky, exhausted from a long day of working at Gruenwald’s, quietly snoring on the pillow next to him.

“Find anything interesting while I was passed out?”

“Yeah, actually,” Sam said, “here—”

He held out a palm-sized piece of paper. Steve took it from him, frowning.

Nikolai Grigorij Sanovich [Nick Stanton]  
MALE age 87  
COD SCI [BFT]  
ETOD 06:30

Dmitriy Afanasyevich Bulgakov [Mickey Bondurant]  
MALE age 94  
COD SCI [BFT]  
ETOD 13:45

“If the names sound familiar, that’s because they were both on the list of handlers from Natasha’s own personal Anonymous vendetta. From the info leak,” Sam said. He tapped a finger against the paper. His voice had an odd quality: almost hesitant. Uncertain. “Spinal cord injury, blunt force trauma. Both of them born around the same time, both of them associated with HYDRA and the Winter Soldier Project specifically.”

Natasha had said—

_He's been sending you a message._

Steve said, “He’s killing handlers.”

Natasha had been _right_.

The relief was so dizzying that Steve reached out instinctively for the edge of the counter, to hold onto something so he wouldn't fall.

“He’s been killing them, and he—he _wants_ us to know that’s what he’s doing.”

“It certainly seems that way, yeah,” Sam agreed quietly. “And—and don’t freak out, okay? But when I turned on the TV, it had been paused watching a video about—well, I can’t pronounce the fuckin’ name, but it’s somewhere in Ukraine apparently, and it’s in your guy’s file, so—”

Steve ran into the main room so quickly his socks skidded on the wooden floor.

 _Dnipropetrovsk_ , he thought. He grabbed his phone from the table where he'd left it the night before and typed the name of the province just as Sam rounded the corner, carrying the orange juice carton and looking cautious but intrigued.

dnipropetrovsk  
About 26,900,000 results (0.91 seconds)

The third result was a link to a YouTube video. The title was in Ukrainian, except for a name:

Helen Cho | Доктор (Лікар) Хелен Чо неврологічна конференція | Дніпропетро́вськ, Україна | 2005

“Holy fuck,” Sam said.

“It’s all connected,” Steve said, but he couldn’t stop the stupid grin from fighting its way onto his face. Bucky had been _here_ , he’d wanted them to find this—he’d been killing his old handlers, he’d been leaving them notes all around the world— “God, I am going to _kick his ass_.”

“Crazy sonofabitch,” Sam said, sounding almost awed.

“ _So_ much ass kicking,” Steve promised.

But he felt like he was glowing, still. He clicked on the video, which was mercifully in English with Ukrainian subtitles. The grainy footage showed Dr. Cho standing at a podium, talking about cell regeneration and clathrate hydrates and a lot of other things that Steve only barely understood.

Sam said, “What d’you reckon he wants us to do with this stuff?”

Steve just shook his head helplessly. Bucky had been _here_ , he thought, and something in his chest broke loose, finally.

* * *

“—obviously there’s no way to know for sure what something like that would look like. We’ve been highly successful in tracking the neural activity present in dormant nematodes, as demonstrated here. The specimens at Komsomolets were placed in a controlled environment which, over a period of sixty minutes, decreased the internal temperature approximately forty degrees centigrade, to simulate flash freezing. Once the specimens were fully externally frozen—zero degrees—we were able to transport them to the laboratory in a sealed container, to begin tests. Naturally, the situation with the nematodes was vastly different from anything that would be viable for human preservation, but we like to think that we’ve made great strides forwards in this area over the past few years of studies. We’ve done a few preliminary tests on rhesus monkeys, which have shown promising results. Of course, one of the problems with this, in theory, would be adjusting for each person. Every individual person has a different neurological map, as it were, and a different body, and metabolism, so calculating the right amount of time for the freezing process, and the precise temperature... that would be crucial. This isn’t even taking into account minor variables, such as diet... what you had for breakfast could determine how long it takes you to freeze. It’s true! Digestion decreases the body’s homeostatic temperature. And of course, for individuals who are on medications, or who require medical care—not everyone is Captain America; we can’t all have the S3 formula, but then again, we weren’t all frozen! At least, not yet, that is. So we don’t all have a supercharged hippocampus, but we _do_ get a second chance. That’s really what this is about—a second chance at life. Cryogenics have always been at the forefront of the—”

“Something’s off.” He paused the video and drummed his fingertips restlessly on the table. “How would she have known about the hippocampus if Erskine’s research was all destroyed?”

Sam shrugged. “Lucky guess? The serum _was_ supposed to change literally everything about you, remember. And she’s a neuroscientist.”

Steve said, “This was six and a half years before I was found. They didn’t even know I was alive. How would she even have known that the plane had crashed in the Arctic?”

“SHIELD had files on you,” Sam pointed out. “They’ve been trying to replicate the serum since 1943, dude.”

Steve shook his head slowly. “Peggy destroyed all her work in the seventies, and the only person who came _close_ to replicating Erskine’s work was Howard, and he died before he could publish his work.”

Howard had died at age 74, finally a minuscule step closer to his lifelong goal, only for it all to be posthumously erased.

Steve said, “The only thing left of Erskine’s work was—well, me. I didn’t let anyone do tests on me after Erskine. Didn’t trust anyone. And for good reason, I guess. They had my medical records from when I enlisted, but that was it. I didn’t give Peggy the coordinates of where the Walküre went down; I didn’t give them to anybody. We didn’t have anything like a black box in that plane, Sam. Nobody knew where I was. Nobody knew I was _frozen_ , either.”

“And she was in Ukraine,” Sam said, horror dawning on his face. “Speaking at a neurological conference with the world’s top scientific minds in attendance.”

Steve said, “Fuck. I should have—” _known_ , he should have known; he should have noticed something wasn’t lining up about the dates and locations referenced in the HYDRA documents that kept appearing in randomized safe houses around the globe—

“Komsomolets,” Sam said, frowning. “I’ve heard that somewhere before—”

“Yeah, fuck, me too,” Steve said, and flipped back through Bucky’s file, the folder he refused to think of as the Winter Soldier’s file.

And then there it was, a letter dated September of 2001, the postage marking it as Ukrainian in origin—Odessa, Vasily Karpov, and a woman named Darya Aleksandrovna Kuznetsova—

“‘Vaska, I could hardly contain my excitement when I first saw the rumors that the Agent had been rediscovered in Komsomolets Island,’” Sam read over his shoulder, “‘there is a limited window to seize control of this particular narrative’... ‘particularly if we continue to lack access to the Agent,’ man, that’s creepy as hell.”

“It’s not one of HYDRA’s operatives,” Steve said slowly. The immense and terrible truth was starting to make itself known, crawling up inside his throat and threatening to choke him.

He should have known. But who could have guessed, really?

“‘The Agent,” Sam echoed. “And from 2001—”

Steve said, “I think it’s time I talked to Nick.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CLIFF HANGER.
> 
> Sources and references round-up can be found [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pBDOfZDeL7HyiRrvYYm8Ue0pe44g9kX8xBj4egtBq7A/edit?usp=sharing).


	7. A difficult winter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, the long, slow unspiralling of The Facts.

* * *

**FROM: Jen**

thinking of calling this wapo piece "so your government turned out to be nazis: what do?"

**FROM: Matt**

Do NOT do that.

* * *

“My mother,” Peggy said, “had an old adage she used to tell us she lived by, during the first war. ‘Keep your soul clean and your boots dirty.’”

Howard tapped his cigar against the rim of his empty glass, contemplative. “Hmh. Bit more difficult than it sounds, don’t you think?”

Peggy sighed. “Howard,” she said. “I rather think I’ve gone about it backwards from the start.”

* * *

“Steve Rogers (Captain America).” _Wikipedia._

[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Rogers_(Captain_America)#Disputed_date_of_recovery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Rogers_\(Captain_America\)#Disputed_date_of_recovery)

A report later deemed to be fabricated made in late August 2001 claimed that two Russian fishermen had found remnants of the destroyed plane Rogers was piloting at the time of his disappearance.[7](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Rogers_\(Captain_America\)#Disputed_date_of_recovery#cite_note_7)

Retrieved March 7 2012.

* * *

It was the ninth day of the eighth month of 2001, and Captain America was alive.

“Well,” said Siobhan McPhearson, leaning back in her chair and tossing the damning file onto the desk with finality. “That’s got us pretty much fucked, then.”

She glanced up. “But pardon my language.”

Jack’s expression tilted towards amusement before landing squarely in neutrality. “We could always play it off as just a rumor… Couple of civilians messing around in the DMZ, possibly some substances involved, thought they say something they didn’t. Chalk it up to some sort of typical Slavic conspiracy bullshit and—hell, wasn’t Komsomolets the same island where some sozzled Russian oil workers claimed someone had frozen _Rasputin_ or whatever, a couple years back?”

“I don’t fucking remember, dude.”

“When it comes to Captain America, well, the trail went cold somewhere over Greenland, as far as the WSC is concerned. For all intents and purposes, that particular hatchet was buried back in 1965 when Director Carter officially founded SHIELD.”

He tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the desk, and McPhearson watched his fingerprints smear across the surface of the grainy photographs.

“It’s still weird to think that SHIELD was a product of the Cold War,” she said. “I mean, it’s not like there weren’t other Captain Americas.”

“Captains America?”

“Whatever.”

Jack shrugged. “Once we settle the official story, the next question would be extraction. Gotta get that bad boy outta the ice without an international scandal on our hands. Realistically, there’s no way in hell Russia’s going to let us fuck around on what’s clearly Russian… soil, ice, whichever. Not without some sort of permit, investigation, armed guard escort, whatever it is that they want. If they get hold of the package, it’s over.”

McPhearson snorted. “I’m sure there’ll be some great headlines if this conversation ever gets Watergated. ‘Jack Alharizi lets Russia get ahold of Captain fucking America’s package.’”

“Siobhan, we’re on the brink of what could turn out to be the biggest discovery of the century or the catalyst for the third world war. Don’t bullshit me that you never thought about his _package_. Hell, I had a poster in my room that definitely contributed to some pubescent awakenings, if you know what I mean. ‘Truth, Justice, And The American Way!’ All that schlock.”

“Can’t say I have, sorry.”

She glanced down at the top photo, showing a blurry blob of metal half covered in sheets of ice and blown snow. “I had a poster, too. One with the whole team getting ready to take down some stereotypical German fascists or whatever. It was after the war ended, one of the reprints, so it was… Monroe, I think? Anyway, Dugan was my favorite, with the funny hat and moustache. I had all the candy wrappers with his face on them saved in a drawer until I was like twelve.”

“Traditionally sugar-coated American propaganda.” Jack lifted an imaginary glass in her direction. “I think we should take this to Pierce.”

“Dude, Coulson said to look over the report and then talk to him, not to his boss.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t the same as one of those original action figures turning up on Antiques Roadshow, or one of the Commandos’ hand-drawn porn mags hitting eBay, this is _big_. Even if it turns out to be all wash, there’s no way Russia would let it slide, and Coulson’d flip his lid if it got out that there were rumors that the original Captain America had washed up in a Russian glacier.”

“Oh, and that’s better than Greenland, of course. Because we’re not arm-wrestling _Greenland_ over tariff limitations.”

“Nail,” said Jack, “and the motherfucking head.”

“I’ll e-mail Coulson and let him know we’re taking the files up to Pierce, how about that,” Siobhan offered, straightening up in her chair. She wiggled her mouse to wake up the screen. “Man, your mouse pad is gonna look tacky as shit if this turns out to be the real McCoy.”

Jack just waved his hand dismissively. “At least I didn’t buy my nephew Cap PJs for his thirteenth birthday.”

“Hey, kid’s name is _Brock_ , least I could do was splurge to get him something he really wanted. He practically worships the guy. Had reprints of all the original comics already, plus a bunch of action figures from the eighties or something. All ri-i-ight... and here we are,” she said. “Hard drive?”

He passed it over obediently. “Assuming Pierce doesn’t take us out back and shoot us in the head for not coming to him with this right away, you want to get a drink after? In honor of scientific advancement or nuclear annihilation, whichever decides to come first.”

“Cute,” McPhearson said, not looking up. “I’ll just tell Missy I’m blowing her off for my work friends, huh?”

“Bring her along, I don’t care.”

“Well, if you don’t care, then, homophobia is over,” she said, and started typing the e-mail.

“I really think you should just send it straight to Pierce,” Jack said.

Siobhan groaned. “You know what? Fine. Fine! But when Coulson comes in asking why the hell we didn’t follow proper procedural steps with this shit, _your_ ass is getting thrown under the bus, mark my words.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Okay,” she said finally, turning the computer screen so he could see it. “How’s this look?”

SUBJ: RE: KOMSOMOLETS FIND - GH-325

Director Pierce,

Attached is the file sent over by the information department, also containing photographs recovered from the site of the incident, which were then uploaded to two separate flocked (private) LiveJournal accounts (see link in attached file). As of today, the Russian media has not reported on the incident. It could be nothing, and probably is nothing, but I figured you would want to get a look at this before the public found out.

Sincerely,

Agent Siobhan McPhearson   
Data Recovery / Media & PR Rep., SHIELD

ATTACHED FILE: GH325_SEVERNAYA_ZEMLYA_09082001.78254.DOCX

“Good enough for _me_ I guess,” Jack said.

Siobhan dusted her hands off with mock extravagance. “Ri-i-ight. Sent! _So_. What d’you think SHIELD will decide to do once we get him back?”

“Uh,” said Jack. “I don’t know if that’s up to SHIELD, actually. I think the White House might want to have a say in it. Or the WSC and the UN, considering that he wasn’t found on American soil. He’s still an American citizen though, so who knows how that works. Plus, there’s a difference between ‘Steve Rogers’ and ‘Captain America.’ One of them died, and one of them didn’t.”

“I mean, wasn’t Rogers declared legally dead in 1945, after the plane went down?”

“MIA, I think,” Jack said. “Army hates declaring soldiers KIA, even PKIA—remember the hell they raised after that bullshit on the Gaza Strip?”

“There’s got to be some legal protocol to deal with that particular potential clusterfuck. That’s assuming he’s even _alive_ in there.”

“Who knows... That steroid cocktail was one hell of a drug. Stark tech is some souped-up shit.”

Siobhan made a face. “Ugh, _Stark_. I can’t imagine he’ll be content to keep his hands off this sort of thing, can you? Stark Industries made the iconic shield, so Mr. Playboy Mansion will probably show up with some sob story about how Cap legally counts as his property under his Daddy’s God damn Last Will and Testament, or something. Christ, would there be next of kin? Cap wasn’t married, no kids, no parents—it’s like he’s Batman or something.”

“Director Carter might count,” Jack said dubiously. “Since she was... close. To him.”

“Hah,” said McPhearson.

Jack snickered. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Agent.”

“To hear her tell it, they macked once, and he was her guardian angel. Did you ever watch that one really campy movie from like, the sixties, with like, Paul Newman as Cap, and Sal Mineo as what’s his face, the teen sidekick from the comics—?”

“Oh, with Pier Angeli? Yeah, my _mom_ loved that shit,” Jack said. “Full cast of stars, and it still pretty much sucked. Like, literally no action.”

“Sixties was pretty much just residual Cold War propaganda, though,” Siobhan said. “Right after the Hollywood blacklist and all that. I mean, I don’t know, maybe when the guy wakes up, you can ask him how he feels about the dirty reds.”

“I can see the New York Post headline already: CAPTAIN PINKO,” Jack said. He was trying his best to stifle his growing amusement—the whole situation is batshit enough as it is. “Besides, Carter’s husband was Cap’s old friend from the war, right? Gabe Jones? They just left ’im out of everything. Him and Morita, that is. I mean, _sixties_.”

Siobhan shrugged, leaning back in her chair. “New plan, you can come over to mine and we can watch the shittiest Cap movies and get shitfaced. Except the Mel Gibson one, cause Missy would absolutely murder me if I brought that into our home.”

“What about _A Hero Grows in Brooklyn?_ ”

“No, no, we definitely have to watch _A Hero Grows in Brooklyn_ ,” Siobhan said quickly, “who the fuck do you think I am, a fucking philistine? Bring something to drink, though. I can break out the emergency freezer vodka. God. We’re getting ahead of ourselves, aren’t we.”

“A little bit, maybe.”

“Yeah, cause it’s not like it’s a done deal,” Siobhan said, a sour twist to her mouth. “All we have to do now is get our hands on the biggest pot of gold the American people have ever dreamed of, figure out what the hell to do with it, and play keep away with the Kremlin and associated acts until the legal juggling is done with. And that’s just the pre _lim_ inary; no telling what’ll happen if he wakes up. Christ, it’s like the Cold War all over again.”

Jack said, “I think the difference is that we actually have Captain America this time.”

* * *

“Let me get this straight,” Mayim said, linking her fingers and tapping her thumbs together. “Two Russian fishermen stumbled across some scraps of metal with English letters on them, so they took pictures, uploaded the pictures to LiveJournal, and someone suggested that the insignia _looked_ American. So now they’re thinking they’ve got the top-secret remnants of some classified American government program in their hands, we are this close to losing our grasp on a veritable cache of international intelligence and security, and still _neither of you thought to call me_.”

To their credit, the two SHIELD agents both looked gratifyingly abashed.

“Agent—Special Agent Lyubarskaya, we, uh,” the woman—McPhearson, maybe? Mayim didn’t actually care—stammered out. “We e-mailed the info over to Director Pierce?”

Mayim steepled her fingers. She felt very calm. “You e-mailed this confidential information—these _photographs_ , no less—to the co-director of a government agency specializing in highly classified special intelligence and national security,” she said slowly, laying it all on the table for them. “Please tell me you at least used the official channels.”

That earned her the same twin abashed look again.

God damn it, but Mayim was going to need a drink or twelve after this whole debacle.

She glanced back over at the copy of the e-mail that Director Pierce had faxed to her office earlier that morning.

Even imagining the possibilities was giving her a headache. Over thirty-eight billion spent during the Cold War hunting after that fucking Walküre plane, and now a couple of inept Russian fishmongers dropped the best clue of all right in her lap.

“Let me tell you what’s going to happen,” she informed the agents. They were both still trying to hide how terrified of her they were, which was almost a nice change of pace. “I’m going to contact my friend Helen, who’s just finished her second doctorate in microcellular biology with a specific focus on cryopreservation. She did that big project with the giant squid that was frozen for six decades, you probably saw that in the news, right? I’m going to catch up with her and tell her to plan a research trip to Komsomolets Island with her backup team. That team is going to trek out to Komsomolets, and retrieve a certain _package_. Scientific immunity isn’t airtight, but it’s our best bet. Meanwhile, _you two_ are going to draft an outline for how we’re going to keep those fishermen’s mouths shut about this situation. And for God’s sake, get those pictures taken off the BBS before the whole damn world knows about them, won’t you?”

They both scrambled to nod and agree. Mayim leaned back in her chair.

Sometimes it was just incredibly gratifying to be one terrifying motherfucker.

It took her only a few minutes to e-mail Helen, who was currently still abroad somewhere in Korea with her fiancée, about the project.

Helen, predictably, was absolutely delighted at the concept of (as Mayim had cryptically put it) “the research opportunity of a lifetime.” She was still so young, Mayim thought fondly, while she worked on composing another e-mail to send to Pierce; he would have to be the one to bring Helen in officially, of course. Bureaucracy could be a real cunt.

It could almost be charming, the naïveté of young people.

One last message, a private e-mail to Pierce himself: _Op TOSKA is FSA_. Full steam ahead. It would be good to finally get it over with, at least.

So, Mayim thought, with no small degree of satisfaction. Operation Mascot had been the work of rich white men throwing money at government agencies and comparing dick sizes while masturbating to the thought of reclaiming the pop culture icon that was Captain America for their very own. The Russians had made their own version, of course, because the Russians had made their own version of everything during the Cold War. Almost forty billion USD blown on a lead that didn’t pan out—but Mayim was going to bring the flock home to roost, that’s for sure.

Whether Rogers was alive or not in that glacier wasn’t that important, not really. It had never been about him as a person. It was always about what he _represented_.

* * *

** In the aftermath of the destruction of SHIELD: Where do we go from here? **

Jennifer Walters | November 12 2014 | OPINION

_IMG: “The Captain,” Norman Rockwell (1944)_.

(Washington Post) — This week marks the five-month anniversary of the abrupt and unexpected dissolution of an entire government agency, ripped up by the roots, the ground torched after it.

Following the assassination of Co-Director Alexander Pierce, now posthumously accused of facilitating the underground Nazi organization known as “HYDRA” — only a few days after the shocking assassination of Co-Director Nicholas Fury — the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division (SHIELD) quietly closed its doors for what could very well be the last time.

For those who haven’t brushed up on their history, SHIELD was founded in 1967 by British intelligence agent Margaret “Peggy” Carter-Jones and American industrialist and scientist Howard Stark, of _Stark Industries_ fame. The government organization worked alongside the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, also known as MI6) to advance scientific discoveries and experiments, control and contain government intelligence, and protect (inter)national secrets for nearly fifty years.

Carter-Jones, known to her peers as merely Director Carter, formally retired from SHIELD in 1988 at age 68. Only three years later, in December 1991, Stark and his wife Maria (née Collins) were both killed in a tragic automotive accident while driving to visit friends in the DC area.

HYDRA, dating back to Nazi-occupied Germany the 1930s, claimed responsibility for all manner of international disasters from the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center to the death of Princess Diana of Wales in 1997.

The organization originated with the rise to power of Johann Schmidt, known by his sobriquet of the “Red Skull” due to extreme facial scarring as the result of a failed experiment attempting to transform Schmidt into a “super soldier,” and continued after Schmidt’s death during the closing days of World War Two in 1945.

Arnim Zola, PhD, one of the head scientists working with HYDRA and Schmidt, was transported to the United States in 1946 as part of the post-war Operation Paperclip, intended to grant amnesty to scientists who had worked for the Germans, provided that they were willing to lend their services to the American Government. Zola was implicit in the formation of the Manhattan Project, working alongside none other than Howard Stark, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, Hans Bethe, and John H. Manley, among others.

Unbeknownst to most of the world, however, HYDRA had not died with its founder, Johann Schmidt; instead, the organization continued to operate in secret, sowing discord and spreading chaos whenever possible.

It was only in June of 2014 that the truth came to light — HYDRA had been growing inside SHIELD for decades, waiting for the right moment to strike.

For many, the disappearance of an entire government agency is impossible to fathom. Hundreds of SHIELD operatives were arrested on suspicion of being double agents in the weeks after the scandal, with many confessing even before conclusive proof was provided. Multiple agents with the FBI and CIA were also implicated.

The massive data leak of classified government documents that coincided with the dissolution of SHIELD/HYDRA contributed to the imprisonment and sentencing of many government agents, although there were unforeseen complications which arose when the documents appeared to implicate multiple individuals in the upper echelons of the Federal Government, including Senators, Congressmen, State Representatives, and the Secretary of Defense.

[ ** READ MORE.**](clicky)

* * *

“Agent Carter,” someone said.

Peggy jolted herself awake. “I’m here!”

Gabe Jones was standing in the doorway, looking like he was trying valiantly to stifle his amusement. “I can see that, ma’am.”

“Bloody hell,” Peggy said. She rubbed her hands across her face, sinking deeper into her chair. “The world had better not be ending, Jones.”

“Don’t worry about that, ma’am,” he said. “And you can call me Gabe—or Jonesy, like the fellas do.”

“Only if you call me Peggy,” she said, raising her eyebrows.

He ducked his head. “I’d never dream of it, ma’am.”

“Well,” Peggy said. She sat up a little straighter, trying to collect herself. At least it hadn’t been Howard or Chester who’d stumbled upon her dozing while she was supposed to be going off the condolence lists. “What’s the emergency this time, then?”

“I’m supposed to bring you to the Colonel’s barracks,” Jones said. “And I’m not supposed to know anything about what he’s going to talk to you about, but—well, you know how the men talk—”

“Only too well,” she said dryly. “Out with it, then.”

Jones hesitated. “Well—I heard that it’s about the Captain—you didn’t hear this from me, but there’s a representative from the USO demanding to speak to someone high up…”

Peggy sat bolt upright. “Oh, fucking Christ,” she said, too shocked to worry about keeping her language appropriate around one of the men. “They don’t know we don’t have—”

“Exactly,” Jones said. He winced. “See, Cap wasn’t _really_ a Captain, and—”

“Hellfire and brimstone,” said Peggy. She stood up, wobbling only a little, and tugged her jacket into place; there really was nothing to be done about her hair. “They’re going to want a Captain America, but we don’t _have_ a Captain America.”

“I reckon we’re going to have to find one,” Jones said. He glanced down at his hands, wrapped around his hat. “I’d offer my services, but—well.”

“As would I,” Peggy said grimly. “I appreciate the advance warning, Jones.”

He nodded. “I’ll walk with you over to the Colonel’s barracks,” he said, shifting awkwardly like he’d started to offer her his arm, then reconsidered. “Pardon my saying so, but you look as though you could use the moral support.”

Peggy rolled her shoulders back, stifling a yawn. The condolence letters would have to wait to be written, then. “Jones,” she said, “you don’t know how right you are.”

* * *

The story of Steve Rogers begins sometime in 1917, approximately a year before his birth, when a massive passenger ship carrying an estimated quarter of a million immigrants docked at Ellis Island. Among the passengers was, to the best knowledge of historians, an Irish teenager by the name of Sorcha mac Ruaidhrí. She had endured the voyage from Ireland to New York alone, probably spoke little to no English, was more likely than not illiterate, and was several months pregnant. Her husband was dead; her family had vanished into the annals of history.

Rogers’s birth certificate lists his date of birth as July 4th, 1918, a date which is more likely than not fabricated. Sorcha mac Ruaidhrí – Americanized at Ellis Island to become Sarah Rogers – was an Irish native who had immigrated to the United States in the late 1910s, already pregnant with her first and only child. The cards were stacked against her from even before the moment she set foot on American soil.

Sarah Rogers was barely 19 when her son was born; her husband, Seosamh mac Ruaidhrí – Americanized to become Joseph Rogers – had been killed in battle shortly after their wedding in early 1917, one of over 49 thousand Irish victims of the First World War.

Due to strong anti-Irish sentiment in the United States at the time, the Americanization of Gaelic names – common practice amongst refugees emigrating from Ireland in the wake of the Great Famine in the mid-1800s – would likely have been the cause of Sarah Rogers’s unusual choice of name for her son. “Steven” was an uncommon enough _prénom_ in 1918, and the middle name “Grant” even more so. Although no official records exist to suggest either way, it is probable that Sorcha – Sarah – would have originally chosen for her son the name Stiofán mac Ruaidhrí – a more traditionally Irish name which was then bastardized into Steven Grant Rogers upon immigration.

Little is known of Sorcha mac Ruaidhrí’s life before her emigration from Ireland. No official documentation linking her to any family survives; her marriage certificate, birth certificate, and any early medical records are all lost. Her situation was certainly far from unique – it is conservatively estimated that as many as 4.5 million Irish immigrants arrived in America between the years of 1820 and 1930.

Of her family, her husband, her friends, or her childhood, next to nothing is known. Later reports suggest that her marriage to Seosamh mac Ruaidhrí was for love (and not, as it has been suggested, because he got her pregnant), but as to how she felt, survived, or managed in the wake of her husband’s death is unknown. She had married Seosamh mac Ruaidhrí shortly before her 18th birthday.

Upon her arrival in America via Ellis Island, Sorcha mac Ruaidhrí – tired, hungry, alone, and several months pregnant – no doubt chose the option closest to an American version of her husband’s family name. Patient records at the Sloane Maternity Hospital (now the Sloane Hospital for Women) in Manhattan show only that a “Sarah Rogers” was delivered of a son in 1918, and that the baby’s father was listed as deceased.

It is not known if Sarah Rogers spoke any English, or if she had the financial ability to provide a stable household for herself and her son, although neither are likely – many immigrants were, in fact, illiterate in their own languages, not to mention English. Following the birth of her only child, Sarah Rogers vanished from history for nearly two decades. If any other mac Ruaidhrís sought her out, no record remains.

“OPSEC: Decoding the Classified Files of Project Rebirth, the HYDRA Threat of the Forties, and Captain America.” Katie Malinovskaya, 2004. ( _Chapter one: “The First File: Sorcha mac Ruaidhrí_ , _”_ pp. 17-44.)

* * *

In the Captain America exhibit in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, there was a panel detailing Bucky’s service record as one of the designated marksmen in the 107th Infantry Regiment. The museum’s description of the Kreischberg attack had been clinical and dispassionate: _While on tour in Azzano, Italy, Rogers’s heroism saved 163 lives—including that of his best friend, Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes_. No mention of the frantic rush through the treeline in the dark, heart in his throat, clutching a staticky radio and a prop shield as his only sidearm. No mention of the _heroism_ of any of the prisoners, of the nauseating jolt of seeing Bucky strapped to that table with all that sharp, eerie machinery looming all around him.

No mention of how Steve had barely done anything to liberate the camp after initially freeing the prisoners—he’d half dragged and half carried Bucky out of immediate firing range, patched him up as best he could with no field triage experience, and then the others had caught up to him.

It hadn’t felt like heroism. It had felt like selfishness.

The exhibit had proudly displayed a few sundry photographs: Bucky in his sergeant’s uniform, Bucky from his welterweight division; Steve at Camp Lehigh, face scrunched up against the bright flash of the camera; the two of them poring over a map of HYDRA outposts, with Peggy and Col. Phillips stood close by.

Steve had remembered that map, though. Bucky hadn’t stopped futzing with the little pieces used to mark off the locations of Axis troops, and Col. Phillips had snapped at him to pay attention before the Germans won the damn war while the American soldiers were still daydreaming about winning it.

Bucky had saluted mockingly and said, _Well I guess we ain’t gonna hang out the washing on the Maginot Line then_ , and Steve remembers looking at him, then, and noticing how his hair was mussed up and unkempt, how his dog tags were resting outside of his undershirt. It wasn't warm, but Bucky's skin had been pearled with sweat.

In the summer of 1934, in the throes of the Depression, it had been hot enough for Bucky to drag them both outside to the Barnes family’s fire escape to sleep, to escape the stifling heat.

Bucky had smoked and flipped through Flash Gordon pulps while Steve switched between sketching and coughing until his throat felt raw and hollow. He had been barely sixteen; his Ma was in hospital for suspected tuberculosis.

“Y’know,” Bucky said, after Steve had coughed until he felt like his stomach was turned inside out, “you’re not allowed to die on me, pal, you hear me? You do that and I’ll sock you.”

Steve wheezed when he tried to laugh, but he tried to laugh anyway.

He watched the dimming outline of Bucky’s shoulders as he leaned forwards to flick ash off his cigarette. His mouth felt dry.

In the Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian, there had been a singular picture, from 1934. Bucky was dressed up all nice and spivy, with enough brylcreem in his hair to keep it from melting in the heat. Steve, standing next to him, was in his dress shirt, squinting in the glare of the sun, his gabardine jacket tossed over one arm.

Winnifred Barnes had taken the photograph, before Wednesday Mass, then hustled the two of them, along with Rebecca, down to the trolley line.

Afterwards, Bucky had bought a sliver of ice from the delivery truck for eleven cents—the rest of yesterday's wages from Gruenwald's—and rubbed it on Steve’s face, his neck, his wrists, and Steve had pretended that he was only shivering because it was cold.

* * *

The strangest thing was still the people who would flock to his side like moths bouncing off a light bulb. They would say: welcome back, Captain Rogers. They would say: thank you for your service, sir, it's an honor to be in your presence. They would say: you’re what inspired me to join up when I was in high school. They would say: I used to collect your comic books when I was just a kid—you were always my favorite superhero—I still got some of the limited-edition comic compilations on the shelf back home—

* * *

The date of publication stayed the same no matter how many times Steve clicked on the little arrow at the top to refresh the page. Wikipedia, late August of 2001. Nearly an entire decade before he had officially been discovered, or uncovered, or retrieved, or _found_ , whichever story it was this time.

“Dude,” Sam said. “You’re gonna drive yourself crazy looking at that shit. C’mon, help me decide where we’re gonna go next.”

Steve didn’t look up. He said, “He—he wanted me to figure this out.”

“And you’re not going to figure out why by sitting on your ass staring at a computer screen, buddy.” Sam stuck Natasha’s list of safe houses underneath Steve’s nose. “Pick one of these locations so we can see what your fella wants us to do next.”

Steve said, “Uh. Samarqand?”

“Uzbekistan it is, then,” Sam said with finality. “Hey, c’mon. Turn off the computer for a moment.”

Steve turned off the computer.

“Okay,” Sam said. “Listen. I know—”

For a horrible moment Steve thought he was going to say, _I know how much Barnes means to you_ , like everyone else who had tried to talk to him about this sort of thing, but thankfully Sam didn’t.

Sam said, “Listen, I know we’ve spent the past four months on the most batshit road trip around the world, and I like to think that really brings people together, but—”

Steve couldn’t help laughing a little at that: he really couldn't help it. “Are you finally breaking up with me, Wilson?”

“Am I—no! Shut your big mouth,” Sam said. “I broke up with you when you tried to suck my dick instead of processing your feelings like an emotionally healthy ninety-something year old miracle of science. Which is what I wanted to talk about, by the way.”

“The fact that I’m 95?”

“You already know I go for older guys, I guess, so no. But _anyway_. Look, far be it from me to judge lest I make a hypocrite of myself, but... are you sure it wouldn’t be best to take a break, head back to DC, and let Barnes reunite with you on his own time?”

Steve said, “Buck’s not—that’s not how we do things.”

He meant, of course, that if he didn’t follow Bucky, then Bucky would vanish back into the cold without saying anything, because that’s what Bucky would think would hurt Steve the least. It was the exact same sort of thing Bucky had done back in 1943, when he told Steve he was shipping out for Liverpool, England, instead of Casablanca, Morocco.

Steve hadn't figured that one out until much later: he'd had an inkling after Kreischberg, but it hadn't been until the future, with the Internet and all its inexplicable information available at the touch of a fingertip, that he'd been able to find out, once and for all, that there had never been a boat shipping out from New York for Liverpool.

The thing was, it had been that way since Steve was still a scrawny sixteen year old punk in 1934, winding up in fights with guys twice his size because—well, because he was a skinny Irish kid and his Pa wasn’t around, or because he’d chewed them out about not respecting the ladies who came out of the automats on break, or because they’d decided he looked like a fairy, or because—whatever it was this time around the block, really.

“Okay, I hear that,” Sam said slowly, “but I also know that you’ve been dealing with, well, a _lot_ of shit recently, and your judgement might not necessarily be the—”

“I don’t have PSD or whatever it is you keep talking about,” Steve said. “I’m fine.”

“See, I know you know what PTSD is, and you’re just being a shit about it,” Sam told him. “There’s nothing bad about needing help.”

“I don’t need help,” Steve said, because he didn’t.

He would welcome Sam’s help in finding Bucky, of course, because he wasn’t an idiot. But that didn’t mean he needed even more sessions with counselors like the ones SHIELD had tried to direct at him for psych evals during the first year or so after he’d been woken up, back when everyone still spoke in quiet, serious voices about _mental_ _health_ and _emotional_ _instability_ and _culture_ _shock_.

But then again, that had been a whole damn decade after they’d found him, apparently.

Sam said, “You know about the pain scale, right? One is least painful, ten is the worst pain imaginable. From one to ten, how are you feeling right now?”

“Two,” Steve told him.

Sam said, “And what would that translate to for a normal person?”

Steve shrugged. Sam said, “What’s your ten?”

“I dunno,” Steve said. He hadn’t really thought about it. “Maybe being flayed and dropped in acid, or something.”

“See, there’s your problem right there,” Sam said.

Steve said, “I don’t have PTSD. I know you think I do, but I don’t.”

“I’m just saying, you exhibit some of the common symptoms,” Sam said. “And you _have_ gone through some pretty traumatic events.”

“I guess,” Steve said.

“No _guess_ about it,” Sam said. “Either you did or you didn’t.”

“Okay,” Steve said. “Then I didn’t.”

Sam said, “You don’t think being in a war was traumatic? Or being frozen in solid ice for seven decades? Or having your best friend not remember you, on top of beating the shit out of you? Or any of the _other_ bullshit you went through during the past century?”

Steve shrugged. “Well,” he said. “I’m still alive. So I’m fine.”

“See, that’s not how that works,” Sam said.

“I don’t _feel_ traumatized,” Steve said. He could still work and eat and sleep, most of the time. He wasn’t forgetting who his friends are, or seeing ghosts. He was fine.

Sam said, “Have you _ever_ felt traumatized?” Before Steve could say no, Sam continued. “Think about it this way. What does _traumatized_ feel like? Your definition would probably be different from mine. It’s different for every person.”

“I know that,” Steve said. “I’m not stupid.”

“I know you’re not. I’m just saying, maybe you’re not right about everything all the time.”

“Well, gee whiz, Sam,” Steve drawled. “Why dontcha tell us a _no_ ther, pally?”

Sam said, “It’s not actually funny when you do that.”

“Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“Well _sorry_.”

Sam said, “Have you considered that maybe the licensed professional counselor who literally works with vets who have PTSD—works with them _for_ _a living_ , I might add—might possibly just know a little bit more than you about symptoms of trauma?”

“No,” Steve said. He smiled.

Sam said, “I’m serious when I say it isn’t a bad thing to need help.”

“I’m serious when I say I don’t,” Steve said.

“Okay,” Sam said, dubious.

“I don’t need you to _fix_ me,” Steve said, because he knew that would make Sam flinch.

It did. “Yeah,” Sam said slowly. “Just like Bucky doesn’t need _you_ to fix _him_ , is that right?”

Steve said, “That’s different.”

“Uh _huh_.”

“It is.”

“Sure, of course,” Sam said, magnanimous. “Because in both cases you _want_ to be helped. In both cases you _asked_ for the help.”

Steve said, “I’m gonna go read through this stuff and try do something actually useful. Don’t bother waiting up,” and managed not to slam the bedroom door behind him, but only barely.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There unfortunately _isn't_ a Norman Rockwell painting of Captain America, but god, I wish there were.
> 
> Sources and references round-up can be found [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pBDOfZDeL7HyiRrvYYm8Ue0pe44g9kX8xBj4egtBq7A/edit?usp=sharing).


	8. Unfinished business

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please do not follow the Steve Rogers Method when it comes to approaching therapy. Speaking as someone with a PSD (oops, I mean PTSD) diagnosis—good therapists will change your entire world, I promise.

* * *

Doctor’s notes—   
Subject █████ ██████   
██ ███ 1945

K█████’s package arrived this morning, though whether we will be able to get anything useful from it is as yet unknown. We have been unable to get in contact with Dr. Z███ due to his position in ███████ as part of the ████████ program to recruit █████ scientists.

The physician working with K█████’s team however has speculated that ███████ ██████’s immersion in freezing water after the fall may have preserved the body, as it prevented the wounds (consisting of several severe lacerations on the left side of the torso and the loss of the left arm at the elbow) from bleeding out entirely. ███████ ██████ appeared to have █████ ██ ███ ███ █████ after the initial fall, covering a distance of an estimated 2.5 meters, at which point ██████ collapsed due to blood loss and traumatic shock, whereupon K█████’s team discovered and reported █████████ ██ ███ █████ ██████ ███████.

Details surrounding what happened to ███████ ██████ are being kept frustratingly confidential. I have been able to piece together that ██████ most likely fell a great distance and impacted a solid surface due to the patterns of bruising on the body. It is probable that ██████ landed in the water, based on the temperature of the body and the condition of the garments, which were frozen stiff.

The official report which I read states that ███████ ██████ was on a small plane which exploded at the occasion of losing the arm, but I doubt this. ██████ would have had to have jumped before the blast — suggesting ██████ could have been in close proximity to a small explosion, but perhaps twenty feet away, most possibly already falling to the water below.

Remarkably, ███████ ██████ is not dead, or at least not yet. I have not personally witnessed it but have read cases where a body that is flash-frozen can be completely revived. There is the case of the mother and her young child in Stalingrad frozen in a snowbank along the road for two hours for example.

K█████ has expressed great interest in this possibility, although I am more interested in ensuring that ███████ ██████ is kept stable until capable of being transported safely and without serious incident. It is our hope that ██████’s blood will still be viable for testing — at the moment, attempting to puncture a vein would be impossible. While ██████ was not frozen completely, the heart rate had decreased so much due to exposure and the time spent in the cold (and quite possibly frigid water) that I nearly pronounced the subject already dead upon first seeing the damage.

Tomorrow I am prepared to begin the process of allowing ███████ ██████’s body to regain its heat for further examination. K█████ and his superiors are more interested in the analysis of the vital fluids than in the revivification, but I imagine that a living subject will be of more use to us in the long run.

It is of course impossible to determine to what degree ███████ ██████ has suffered brain damage from prolonged exposure, but such facts will determine how I proceed with the experimentation upon the revival.

* * *

80.484167 N 94.996389 E

[03.19.05.2000124] PACKAGE LOCATED

[03.35.73.0000021] PACKAGE ISOLATED

[04.51.29.0032893] PACKAGE RETRIEVED

* * *

**From: K8T**

success!

**From: Helen**

:) 

* * *

“Do you think your boy blew up that shack in Vologda?” asked Sam.

Steve didn't open his eyes. He was supposed to be sleeping while Sam was on watch, but he knew Sam knew he hadn’t been able to sleep since he found out. He said, “I don’t know,” because the alternative—the thought that Bucky had been _there_ , had been so close, and slipped away again—was too painful.

Sam said, “Man, I miss Romanoff.”

“Yeah,” Steve said.

However he might have felt about Natasha’s inimitable secrets and falsehoods, her expertise had been a guiding hand. Without her, the whole situation was brittle, paper-thin. Steve hadn't heard from her in a little over a week, two countries and three safe houses ago. She hadn’t responded to any of his text messages, either.

Trying to sleep was futile. Steve opened his eyes and sat up, reaching for the papers stashed on the nightstand: Bucky’s file, the Centipede Project folder from Schoonebeek, the list of dead handlers.

The last safe house they’d cased, in Besançon, had been empty enough to suggest a total lack of occupancy stretching back at least a decade, but Steve knew the signs now, the patterns. The way Bucky worked.

The paper had been tucked under the pillow in the guest bedroom: _Avdotya Snegiryovna Sokolova FEMALE age 68 COD personal ETOD 02:01_. Steve hadn’t been able to think about what that _personal_ might mean without feeling like he was going to be sick.

“The comics,” Steve said. Sam startled, obviously not expecting him to say anything more. “He—he could’ve left the comics. In the house in Vologda.”

“Any idea why he’d do that?”

Steve shrugged, a little helplessly. “Right after the building exploded, I thought—there was something. I thought I saw something. But I couldn’t be sure, so I didn’t say anything to you or to Natasha, in case I was just imagining things. I knew you’d think I was just wishing too hard, that there would be something there. I don’t even know if it was him. But it looked like something metal.”

“Oh, and you think it was his—arm,” Sam said. “Pretty damn distinctive piece of machinery, if you ask me.”

“It’s hot,” Steve said.

“It most certainly is not,” Sam said.

Steve said, “I thought you told me back in the VA, to meet people and try new things.”

“I _meant_ ,” Sam said, long-suffering, “that you should get _laid_.”

“You offering?” Steve said.

Sam said, “Man, now what kinda dope would turn down Captain America?”

“Yeah, Sam,” Steve said. “What kinda dope _would_.”

“Hey now,” Sam said. “I never wanted to fuck Captain America—”

Steve said, “You’re a damn liar.”

“If you would _let me finish talking_ ,” Sam bulldozed. “I never wanted to fuck Captain America once I met you.”

“That’s real sweet, Sam,” Steve said. He meant it. “Especially since you know sex was only invented in the 1960s.”

“Yeah, you’re not fooling me with that one again,” Sam said. “Having to teach you about _seat belts_ was scarring enough, thanks.”

“I only told you, we didn’t have _seat belts_ in _Nazi Germany_. It was _you_ who made it about sex,” Steve said. He looked back down at the pile of papers in his lap.

Steve hadn't read as much from the Centipede folder as he had from the Bucky folder, not really. He kept meaning to read through it, but every time he tried, he comes across something he thought he'd known as something different, and he'd have to stop.

Yesterday it had been Agent Coulson’s signing off on what could only be described as sample gathering—they’d taken every fluid from his body except semen, it seemed like, and only because the electrostimulation hadn't worked while he was still half-frozen; arterial and venous blood and saliva and sweat and urine and lymphatic and cerebrospinal and peritoneal fluid. The scribbled notes in the file had all said things like _successful lumbar puncture performed on subj. SGR for sampling of cerebrospinal fluid_ or _paracentesis performed on subj. SGR—positive results!_ and trying to read through them had made something hot and angry coil up tight in his stomach. It had been different, when it was reading about the atrocities and invasions against Bucky; then it had been easy to think about vengeance. It was different, now that it was people he had been supposed to trust.

The day before yesterday, it had been the fact that Captain America’s status as government property had apparently not been annulled upon his putative death.

Howard Stark had spearheaded Operation Mascot from 1945 until 1974, when SHIELD formally declared the case closed on the disappearance of Captain America. Howard Stark had spearheaded the Centipede Project’s original iteration—replication of the S3 formula colloquially known as the _super soldier serum_ —from 1943 until his death in 1991.

The mission reports never give incriminating details, of course. No names, no connections. HYDRA hadn’t been amateurs.

Steve had read the mission reports, of course. Read and reread them until he could practically recite them verbatim.

The reports were like the world’s sickest chess game: Winter Soldier to Santiago, Chile. September 11 1973. And then a note: _Pinochet_. _Assault_ _rifle_.

Winter Soldier to Peshawar, Pakistan, November 24 1989. And then a note: _car_ _bomb_ — _jihadi_.

The same clinical, dispassionate tone from the medical records. Here we performed thoracocentesis to remove pleural buildup. Here we provided a service to the world. Here we sent a weapon to the Gaza Strip.

No, Steve hadn’t read most of the Centipede Project folder. Some part of him still felt as though he shouldn’t be so upset at being treated like a scientific experiment.

 _Everything special about you came out of a bottle_ , Tony had told him, once. _You’re just like one of my machines, all juiced-up and government-owned_ , Howard had told him, once.

“I think it’s easier because you’re my friend. Not the seat belts part, I mean,” Sam said. Steve blinked. Right, he reminded himself. They were having a conversation.

“Yeah?” he said. “I’m not exactly good at having friends.”

“Well,” Sam said. “Lucky for you, I’m _awesome_ at having friends. I have so many friends I can’t even count ’em all. Anyway, you’re not a bad friend, if that’s what you were trying to say without actually saying it outright. If you were a shitty friend, I wouldn’t be following your dumb besotted ass around the world chasing cold leads and dead ends.” Sam paused. “Although, if you’re legit worried about our friendship, man, I’d suggest learning what the word _light jog_ means.”

“That’s two words,” Steve said.

Sam said, “You’re an asshole.”

* * *

**Biography “The Life and Times of Industrialist Howard Stark” to be published later this year **

2015 | New York Times

The World’s Fair had closed late in October of 1940, but the fairgrounds in Flushing Meadows were still off-limits to the public in anticipation of the next big event. Standing next to the RCA Building, a young man in a smart suit was gesticulating excitedly, eager to demonstrate his planned blueprints for New York’s latest scientific exposé: The World Exposition of Tomorrow, a technological extravaganza projected to run from 1943 through 1965.

Today, Howard Stark is most commonly remembered as the co-founder of the government agency SHIELD, but in 1940, the 23-year-old prodigy was more occupied with his burgeoning industrial company, Stark Industries. Unbeknownst to the young Stark, what started as a flashy exhibition of futuristic technologies would grow to become the largest tech conglomerate in the world, overtaking companies such as Apple, Samsung, Amazon, and Foxconn in terms of global revenue (Business Insider, 2014). After the death of Howard Stark and his wife, Maria, in 1991, Stark Ind. was transferred into the hands of their only son, Anthony Stark (who would later adopt the sobriquet of "Iron Man").

Born in Richford, New York, and raised in the Lower East Side, the story of Howard Stark is one of the epochal American Dream. "My mother sewed shirtwaists," Stark told the _Times_ in 2004, commenting on his family's rise to the top. "[A]nd my father sold fruit on the streets of the city," while scraping to make ends meet at home while also providing for the best available education for their only son.

In May of 1934, when Howard Stark was only 17, he attended an international technological conference in Geneva, Switzerland, where the young technological prodigy met a Jewish geneticist in his mid-sixties by the name of Dr. Abraham Erskine, the man who would one day assist him in the creation of Howard Stark’s most tenacious creation—Captain America.

[...]

[page torn; illegible]

* * *

[chickafloyd](https://chickafloyd.tumblr.com) :

> [hms-janeway](https://hms-janeway.tumblr.com) :
> 
> look, normally I have the utmost respect for museum curators and the difficult jobs they lead (provided they’re on board with repatriation, cough cough), but in some situations I have to facepalm because... no. Just no.
> 
> so! with that said. let’s talk about the new cap exhibit.
> 
> [snip]

JANEY ILU AND YOUR BRAIN. I hope you don't mind me adding my two cents, bc (as you know) I wrote my entire freaking dissertation on bucky barnes. AHEM ANYWAY. first of all, someone at the smithsonian /clearly/ didn't do their research. by which I mean, some of the facts they got wrong are easily found on wikipedia ffs! like, "barnes grew up the oldest child of four" I'm sorry, I didn't realize that he had [two extra siblings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Proctor)... unless they intended to include cap in that list? who knows! the kitschy title ("a fallen comrade") is kinda cute though. anyway, I guess whoever created the entranceway exhibit must not have crossed paths with the howlies curator, since the main plaque straight up claims barnes enlisted, which... the museum *has his draft card,* so like, oh no honey what /is/ you doing. easily googled. right so anyway, [barnes was drafted in 1942](http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/31/us/band-of-brothers-the-history-of-the-howling-commandos/index.html) (NOT in 1941, jeez!). kudos for getting it right that he [went through basic training at camp mccoy](https://aadl.org/N082_0071_011) instead of... lehigh or something, I dunno. also I know everyone likes to call the howlies, well, by that name, but [cap's team wasn't known as the howling commandos until 1949](https://captainameri.ca/history/info/media#adaptations-of-the-107-tactical-team/), four entire years after barnes (and cap) went afk. TL;DR everything [@hms-janeway](https://hms-janeway.tumblr.com) said was pretty freaking spot-on, she truly does know all the things. *kisses*

_ Tagged: #irl wank #captain america #dissertation blogging #capexhibit2014 #seriously you'd… think… they would know better… lol _

* * *

Rachel woke up slowly. She yawned and stretched without opening her eyes, reaching out—and the other side of the bed was empty.

She blinked.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Bernie said, smiling. She was already dressed.

“Oh, _hello_ ,” Rachel said. “Have I told you recently how much of a knockout you are in a three-piece?”

“Two-piece,” Bernie corrected mildly. “I have a meeting with a client today, I told you that last night.”

“I was a little busy last night, you might remember it, you were _there_. You have a meeting with a client at—” She fumbled for her phone, squinting at the glare. “Ten in the morning on a weekend?”

“Ten-thirty on a Saturday, actually. And it’s not really—well, it’s Isaiah Ross, on behalf of a friend. He’s not the client, I mean. His friend is. It’s proxy work.”

Rachel frowned. It wasn't as though she didn’t get along well with Isaiah, but when Bernie was actually suiting up to talk to him, that generally meant that trouble was brewing somewhere.

“Is it superhero stuff?”

“Something like that,” Bernie said neutrally. She was putting her earrings in, the ones with tiny monarch butterflies’ wings. “I’ll get you some autographs if you want.”

Rachel lunged forwards and swatted Bernie’s hip. “Watch it, missy, I can get autographs from superheroes whenever I want.”

“Oh, well I won’t bother, then,” Bernie said. She finished with the earrings and leaned in to kiss Rachel good morning. “Hello, by the way.”

“Hi,” Rachel whispered. “I love you.”

“Love you too, baby. It shouldn’t take long, Isaiah just wanted to hand over some documents for me to read. If this gets to a court, they’ll be subpoenaed anyway, of course, but I’m still going to look over them and get my bearings.”

“Don’t forget we’re going to lunch at Marcela’s later after I get my hair done,” Rachel said.

Bernie ran her nails through Rachel’s short hair. “I like the pink. I don’t know why you want to change it.”

“It’s been pink for almost four months!”

“My hair’s been the same color my entire life, and the world hasn’t ended,” Bernie pointed out.

“Your hair’s been the same color because your zaydeh would skin you alive if you changed the Jew-fro,” Rachel said. “ _My_ hair is going to be short and spiky and green because I'm—”

“Because you have a crush on Poison Ivy?”

Rachel swiped ineffectually at her arm. “ _No!_ ”

“Aww, I think it’s cute. You could dress up as her for next Halloween, and I’ll be Harley Quinn. She’s supposed to be Jewish, anyway, it’ll be perfect.”

“Bitch,” Rachel said.

Bernie winked. “And you love me for it. For real though, I gotta run, you know what traffic in the city’s like when the tourists are swarming. Say hi to Seth for me when he does your hair, okay, baby?”

“I’m going back to sleep,” Rachel said. “Is it Wolverine? Are you gonna be defending Wolverine again? He was cool, _and_ he fixed the bathroom door.”

“Nothing that glamorous, sorry,” Bernie said. “All I heard from Isaiah was that he had recommended several local attorneys, and my client—potential client, I mean—picked me because they liked my name, or something, I honestly don’t know. With everything that’s happened in the past eight months, it’s a pretty safe bet to say that it’s got something to do with Captain America, though, or at least SHIELD.”

Rachel already had her head back under the covers, out of the light, but she mumbled, “Get his autograph for me or something.”

Bernie laughed. Rachel could have listened to that sound forever. “Sure thing, baby,” Bernie promised, gathering her purse and sunglasses. The bedroom door clicked shut behind her, and Rachel rolled over and goes back to sleep.

* * *

Rachel was listening to a podcast about venomous snakes (there were about 700 different species of venomous snakes! and about 250 of them were capable of killing an adult human with one bite!) and clipping her nails when a face appeared out of nowhere at the third-floor window. Rachel made a very undignified yelping noise and dropped her phone.

She recognized the face, of course. It would be difficult not to, given that this particular face had been plastered across television screens, in newspapers, on online articles, throughout YouTube video essays, for the past eight months: Natasha Romanoff, alias Natalia Romanova, alias the Black Widow, colloquially known as one of the most dangerous and deadly spies in the world.

“Hi, you,” said one of the most dangerous and deadly spies in the world, and waved like a schoolgirl. “Can I use your WiFi?”

Rachel recovered herself enough to ask, “You couldn't just hack it?”

The Black Widow pouted. “Obviously I could. I’m trying to be _nice_ ,” she said. “It’s a new thing I’m doing. Asking people for things. Anyway, could you tell me the password?”

“You’re not going to do anything illegal on my WiFi, are you?” Rachel demanded, suddenly worried. “My ISP will literally kill me.”

“Nothing that could be traced back to you,” the Black Widow promised cheerily, which was... actually more reassuring than it probably should have been.

Rachel squinted at her for a moment before deciding _why_ _not_. “Yeah, okay,” she acquiesced, tapping her fingertips against the screen. “You might want to come around to the front door of the apartment though. You know. Like a normal person.”

“Aw,” said the Black Widow, looking hurt. “When did I ever give you the impression I was a _normal_ person?”

* * *

** 60 years after the disappearance of Captain America, catch all the best (and worst) portrayals of Steve Rogers on the silver screen **

_American Captain_ (1976). Director: Alan J. Pakula. Starring: Robert Redford, Burt Reynolds, Katharine Ross.

> For a gritty 70s political thriller about a WW2 pop culture icon turned military hero, Pakula somehow manages to pull it off. If you’re looking for something light-hearted and family friendly, this is one to miss: Redford’s Cap is genre savvy enough to be well aware that he’s starring in a sociopolitical drama, and plays his role accordingly. If you’re wanting to see a Captain America story minus the campy costume, vague HYDRA goons standing in for actual 1940s Nazis, or cheesy dialogue spliced between overdramatic fight scenes, this is by far the best option out there. Pakula doesn’t shy away from the atrocities of war, nor from the adult themes (the softcore sex scene between Rogers and Carter midway through the film was allegedly greenlit by Carter herself, although no official evidence exists). Redford’s portrayal of Cap is of a man who wanted to be a soldier, only to be shunted into a role as a dancing monkey, before finally earning his metaphorical (and literal) stripes by taking command against all odds behind enemy lines. As supporting characters, Reynolds and Ross are both excellent, and their combined chemistry with Redford is a major part of what earned Pakula an Academy Award for what remains his most beloved and critically acclaimed film to date. Extra points for remembering to make Peggy Carter brunette. Rating: A-

_Captain America_ and _Captain America II: Death Too Soon_ (1979). Director: Rod Holcomb. Starring: Reb Brown.

> When it comes to factual similarity to Rogers’s life, this is one to miss. Holcomb’s duology shows us a Steve Rogers burdened by his father’s death (his mother is not mentioned) who, after an assassination attempt staged to look like an accident, treats his near-fatal injuries with a “super-steroid” known as F.L.A.G. that was created by his late father from his own DNA. Rogers, a former Marine turned unemployed artist, then adopts the title of Captain America, based on both his father’s legacy and, inexplicably, a childhood drawing of a superhero—which is, at the very least, a relatively reasonable explanation for the campy outfit. The frenzied scenery chewing, unfortunately, has no such explanation. Rating: B+

_Captain America_ (1990). Director: Albert Pyun. Starring: Matt Salinger, Kim Gillingham, Scott Paulin.

> Although almost universally panned by critics, with an average _Rotten Tomatoes_ score of 2/10, this movie deserves credit for its effort to tell a (more or less) historically accurate story while still appealing to a contemporary audience. With some noticeable deviances from the truth (the most glaring being, of course, the way the serum was administered—in the wake of the War on Drugs and the AIDS epidemic, needles were a touchy subject in Hollywood, leading the eponymous hero to imbibe the glowing blue liquid without a second thought for lab safety), cringe-worthy dialogue, and gratuitous facetiousness, the poor ratings almost seem inevitable. However, if you can ignore the lack of a coherent plot, decent budget, direction, or A-list cast, it’s a silly but entertaining take on a much-mythologized hero. It might be a good idea to leave your kids at home, though—the movie opens in pre-war Italy with a graphic machine-gun slaughter scene, helpfully subtitled for the non-Italian speakers in the audience. Rating: C-

_Captain America Versus the Red Skull_ (1962). Director: Martin Gilford. Starring: Jack Kichy, Jean Bradshaw, Michael Robertson, Benny Orlo.

> An obvious hallmark of the post-Hollywood blacklist era of film making, Gilford’s fear of Communism was rivaled only by his fear of a realistic plot. Johann Schmidt (“The Red Skull”) has been recast as a Communist fanatic hellbent on destroying the American ideal, only to be thoroughly trounced by Captain “F*** YEAH AMERICA” through a combination of a staggering arsenal of anachronistic weaponry and sheer machismo, making every high school English teacher cry at the blatant and gratuitous color symbolism. If it weren’t enough to imbue the Red Scare into pop culture, Gilford also manages to transmogrify Peggy Carter into a blonde damsel in distress all too happy to fall swooningly into the strong arms of Captain America, erase both James Morita and Gabriel Jones from the comedic relief group of Howling Commandos, and ignore Rogers’s history as a first-generation Irish immigrant. The final shot is Rogers and Carter embracing passionately while the Soviet Union flag burns slowly in the background and a dazzling display of red-white-and-blue fireworks spells out the end titles, helpfully clarifying the message of the film. Rating: D

_Captain America_ (1997). Director: Ken Burns. Starring: Steve Rogers (posthumous), Margaret Carter, Rebecca Proctor, James Morita, assorted.

> Although not as fictionalized as the rest of this list, Ken Burns’s twelve-part miniseries documentary draws on Burns’s own Brooklyn heritage to tell a truly compelling story of the real Steve Rogers. Complete with archival footage of WWII, lengthy excerpts from the original _Captain America_ films—all available on Archive.org—and in-depth interviews with Margaret “Peggy” Carter, Rebecca Proctor (née Barnes), James Morita, Theodore “Teddy” Dugan, and a handful of historians, the soporific style of Burns’s narrative is canceled out by the sheer quality of storytelling. Rating: A+

_A Hero Grows in Brooklyn_ (1951). Director: Jacob Ferucci. Starring: Jimmy Wisnowsky, Alice Flint, Harry White, Jacob Horowitz.

> As the first cinematographic foray into Captain America post-Hollywood Code—the film was released only four years after the HUAC first cracked down on suspected Communists—the expectations were ground level. _A Hero Grows in Brooklyn_ , however, still managed to crawl under the bar. The film barely made six hundred grand in its domestic release (a paltry amount even in 1951), and never got an international release. Seasoned viewers might recall the laissez-faire approach to historical accuracy, featuring such highlights as a titular “hero” who wears a cape, brandishes a truly awe-inspiring arsenal of weaponry—that, were the film slightly more tongue-in-cheek, would lead us to infer he was compensating for something—and has somehow shed his personhood for the ability to fly (or at least levitate, given the limited technical effects of the time). Although this film carries the dubious honor of being the first silver screen representation of the Captain America story to feature the term “Commandos” to refer to Cap’s team, they’re hardly representative of the real-life men they’re meant to embody (a noticeable lack of color will likely be what most see first). No attempt was made to accurately portray pre-WW2 New York beyond perhaps watching a few dated gangster movies—although Westerns were in fashion, not _everyone_ wore pinstripes. “Captain America” was apparently injected with an “extraterrestrial” toxin that gave him his super-abilities (including the flying part), a fact the film feels the need to remind us of every few scenes. It seems someone got Steve Rogers confused with Clark Kent—the main difference being, of course, that only the former was a real person. Rating: F

* * *

The Internet: so helpful. Steve learned about the atom bomb, about the Manhattan Project and Howard Stark’s influence on its nascence. He learned about internment camps for Japanese citizens, natives or immigrants, living on American soil; about the aftereffects of the war on the lives of Japanese-American civilians like Morita. He learned about Hiroshima, Nagasaki—about the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians snuffed out in an instant, the _hibakusha_ , slaughtered systematically over long days and months of suffering, even after Japan had already formally surrendered. He learned that the American government still taught its children that the bombs were the right decision, the _only_ decision, and he looked at the star on his uniform and felt sick to his stomach.

So helpful. He learned about the Civil Rights movement: Gabe and Peggy had been involved in that, of course, with their children—Gabriel James, Michael Thomas, Amanda Elizabeth. He learned about the lynchings, about the murders; about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; about the targeting of children like Ruby Bridges. About the unfair wages, about the discrimination, about the slow road towards integration, about the pushback against the dissolution of the Jim Crow laws.

All that information, publicly available. The War on Drugs. The War on Terror. The Vietnam War. The Korean War. The War in Afghanistan. The conflict in the Middle East. The British Partition of India. The smaller, more secret wars back home: racial discrimination, inequal pay, the blind eye turned to the AIDS situation while it ran the gamut of _epidemic_ to _crisis_.

At first, SHIELD had wanted Captain America to make public appearances—

("You gotta establish a good rapport with the paparazzi," Fury had advised.

"Sure. Yeah," Steve said. He didn't know what _paparazzi_ meant.)

—and Steve had capitulated on a few of them, but quickly learned that it was better not to answer any of the questions. When the answers he gave didn’t match the politics the reporters wanted to pin to his persona, which was most of the time, they skipped the political enquiries entirely and went straight for the personal.

“Captain Rogers! Have you spoken to Margaret Carter recently?”

“Are you currently romantically involved with anyone?”

“Do you have plans to rejoin active duty?”

“Cap! Cap, do you intend to reside in your old home of Brooklyn?”

“How are you handling the shock of seeing women wearing pants?”

Steve had tried to tell them, at first, that he’d seen women wearing pants plenty of times—while working, or in the factories, or during the hottest months in summer, or even sometimes on weekends at home or while cleaning or running the soup kitchens or scrap metal drives—but they thought they knew his world, and it didn’t matter much what he said.

They thought they knew his world, from the books and movies and newspaper articles. They talked about the Civilian Conservation Corps and Victory Gardens and playing marbles and how he must think bananas tasted so funny, these days. Did he know what _basketball_ was? Had he been to a fast food joint yet? Was he acquainted with _cell phones_ at all?

And the more invasive, sly questions, of course. Did he miss being able to use racial slurs? Did he think of women as sluts for showing their legs? Did he think being gay was unnatural and sinful?

When he actually thought about it, Steve found the questions hilarious. The 107th Tactical would have socked anyone who called Gabe Jones anything worse than a Negro, Steve among them. After a few months on the touring circuit, the USO girls had got so used to Steve's presence that they regularly stripped down in front of him, chattering and gossiping and smoking in their underthings without hardly a care. He'd known about women's nylons and sanitary pads and the techniques they used to make those fancy Victory Rolls stay in place.

And then of course, there had been _Bucky—_

Nobody wanted Captain America to be a person, of course. There were billions and billions of _people_. Captain America was the living legend and symbol of courage: that was all the world needed him to be. Captain America was larger than life, up on a pedestal, sculpted from marble. A man from a distant era of history. A man from a foreign century. A man out of time.

* * *

Bieniec, near Pątnów: Polska. Another one of Natasha’s ancient corrugated-metal sheds. Unlike most of the other safe houses, this one looked recently lived-in: Steve discovered a half-empty jar of peanut butter in the refrigerator, a few pieces of fruit on the counter, a butter knife and a small plate drying on a frayed towel. There was a gas stove and a small fireplace, a neat stack of logs arranged next to it.

“Well,” Sam said. He picked up a plum from the counter, examining it. “I’d say someone’s definitely been in here, all right.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, trying for noncommittal.

He was still rummaging through the drawers in the kitchen, looking for something to give him a clue of how Bucky could be feeling, what he'd been thinking, anything.

There had been a piece of paper stuck to the refrigerator—молоко сыр хлеб сливы—but it didn't look like Bucky’s penmanship.

(Steve still felt his face flush hot with furious embarrassment whenever he remembered the time Tony had first caught him writing something down in the first notebook, three years ago— “Holy shit, is that cursive?” Tony had squawked, trying to snatch the notebook, only relenting when Steve shoved it back inside his jacket pocket, away from Tony’s grabbing fingers. “I guess _Captain_ _America_ doesn’t have to worry about feeling emasculated by patriarchal standards, or whatever—order a mai tai with a little umbrella, sex on the beach, all that jazz—”

He’d been careful to write in the loose, sloppy way people thought was normal now, after that.)

Sam said, “I understand if you feel differently, but I’m thinking we should maybe sleep in the car, if we’re going to stay in—this area. For the night.”

“You scared, Wilson?”

“Uh, yeah,” Sam said. “Should I _not_ be? You know, what with the Nazis, the lapsed assassins, the government turncoats, the international intelligence agents, and oh, did I already mention the Nazis? I didn’t get no fancy serum, man. All I got is my wings if I’m wearing ’em and whatever weapons are within reach.”

“We can sleep in the car,” Steve said.

“Good, cause I really don’t want to get murdered in some tiny village in fuck knows where, Poland.”

“Bieniec,” said Steve.

“Yeah. Thanks,” Sam said. “Captain Obvious.”

“You’re not going to get murdered,” Steve told him.

Sam’s eyebrows jumped. “Sure, that’s nice of you to say, I know you’re confident your man isn’t gonna get the drop on you in your sleep or something, but hell, he doesn’t remember _me_ as anything more than the guy whose wings he shredded, or that other guy who was in the car when he grabbed Sitwell and laminated him across the grille of a Mack truck. So forgive me if I don’t feel exactly as safe as you do. You're cool, sure, but you ain't exactly James Bond.”

“Bucky wouldn’t try to kill you on purpose,” Steve said. He didn't know who James Bond is, but he wasn't about to tell Sam that.

“Right,” Sam said. “And you know that how, exactly?”

But that was the thing though, wasn't it? Because Steve _didn't_ know.

Not really.

He knew it the same way he knew he was born in 1918, the same way he knew he could look up and the roof of the shack would still be there, the same way he knew that the sky was full of stars. Bucky had been going after HYDRA operatives, active or retired, and he'd definitely been killing them, but it wasn't the _same_. Steve didn't know how to explain. It was just a feeling, that was all.

Steve had read the file. He knew all about the horrible sorts of things the Winter Soldier was capable of doing.

Maybe it wasn't exactly the road trip of vengeance Natasha had dismissed earlier, or anything like that. But that didn't mean it had to be a continuation of the things HYDRA had made him do.

This wasn’t the work of HYDRA’s greatest weapon. Steve knew that much for certain. This was the work of _Bucky_.

“I just do,” he said.

“Man, you’re lucky you’ve got me watching your back, cause you are _not_ the type to put your own life vest on first,” Sam said, and shook his head. “I already told you, I’m cool with staying in the area, as long as we sleep in the car, for whatever reason you want to stay in wherever the fuck we are.”

“Bieniec.”

Sam said, “Look, I just have one question, and tell me to shut up if you don’t want to answer, that’d be fine too. You told me one time that you and your fella from the forties both enlisted after Pearl Harbor. But the whole damn world knows the story of how Bucky Barnes got drafted. So was it like a—”

“I didn’t _know_ ,” Steve said, sharply. “He didn’t tell me. If that’s what you were asking. I didn’t find out for sure until—after. Once I got back. Because people forgot that for me, the war wasn’t seventy years ago, it was _yesterday_.”

“It fucks you up, man,” Sam agreed carefully.

“The official date of the— of my disappearance was a couple months after I crashed the Walküre. For me, it was only a little over two weeks since—since Bucky died. I mean, he didn’t die, but I didn’t know that. The Smithsonian has his draft card, behind glass next to all my enlistment forms. Thought about asking for it back, but it was never really mine to begin with, not really. He mentioned something about it in the letters he wrote, the ones he didn’t post, but I didn’t believe it. Half the shit he wrote made no sense anyway. It wasn’t until I got back that I found out it was true.”

“I guess that wasn’t exactly in your ‘welcome to the 21st century’ packet from SHIELD, huh,” Sam said.

Steve laughed, even though it wasn’t funny. “They told me about _history_ , can you believe that? Welcome to the future, here’s a history lesson. Nothing about how to interact with people, or what everyone would have expected from me, or any of that kind of shit.”

The closest thing had been Tony, of all people, cornering him after one of the endless press conferences, and saying, “So, uh, I dunno if anyone told you yet, but uh, here’s a list of... words you can’t really say anymore. Just, I learned it the hard way, so! Thank me later or whatever, God bless America, hit me up if you’re ever looking for a nice girl to spangle your stars, if you get my drift, still wish you’d live in the Tower—”

Steve said, “Welcome to the future, you’re going to be upholding the law now. Except now there were crimes I’d never even _heard_ of. Try explaining the Internet to someone who grew up playing _potsy_.”

What did you do for fun in the 1940s? people always loved to ask him. They thought they knew his world—dancing to swing or jazz bands in the park and shooting marbles in the dirt and playing stickball out in the streets and gathering scrap metal in a little red wagon like the clean-frocked kids from old daguerreotypes.

Rose-tinted lenses, that was the worst part about it. All that retrospective embellishment.

It had all felt so contrived, so stupid. Someone's clinicized view of the past. No one wanted to hear the _truth_.

No one wanted to hear about how Bucky had stolen a length of rope off a workman’s cart to make a skipping rope for Rebecca, or about the block fights during the summer when the fire hydrants were all busted up, or how, when he and Bucky were a bit older, they’d take the subway over to Greenwich and get drunk on stolen Piels.

They thought they knew his world—Prohibition and the Great Depression and the New Deal. No one wanted to hear about Captain America winding up with typhoid after going swimming in the river one summer in 1927—it had been Bucky’s idea, to find a way for Steve to cool off. They used to play games where they would get as close as possible to the ships moving through the water, only splashing out of the way at the last second.

They used to loiter around the local pool halls or movie theatres and pick pockets, or kick cans around the back lots of the tenement buildings, or collect bricks and engage in a vicious war between the Russian kids from one block and the Irish and Jewish kids from the next block.

But no one wanted to hear about Captain America punching some kid’s teeth in for calling him a Mick; they wanted to imagine him obediently doing his homework or reading his catechism.

“Yeah, that sort of shit is exactly why I decided I wasn’t gonna get back in,” Sam said. “Turns out that the more people are involved in something, the more links in the chain. That might work for some people, but not for me. I’m a PTSD counselor, man, I _help_ people. I’m not law enforcement, thank fuck, and I’m not a government intelligence agent. Like I told Fury—more of a soldier than a spy. I’m not about hurting people just because I think it’s the best way to do what’s right.”

Steve said, “You know, the first part of that sounded a lot like something Tony would say. Links in a chain I mean. He’d take a statement like that and decide that the solution is for him to make the chain. You make the chain out of Stark Tech, well, then he’s the only one in control of it. Because he knows best how to save the world.”

Sometimes he looked at Tony and thinks: this man is supposed to be older than me. Sometimes he looked at Tony and thinks: I am supposed to like this man.

Howard would have wanted the two of them to get along, probably. But Howard is dead, in the ground, six feet under. Never coming back.

Automotive accident or assassination. Someone’s cold fingers curling around his bruised throat. The impact of his forehead against the glass windshield. Ice and snow and a broken headlight. It still made him feel vaguely nauseated, the knowledge that he doesn’t care if Bucky was the one who did it.

Sam said, “First of all, please never compare me to Tony Stark ever again. Second of all—that’s gotta be weird for you, right? You just got done with fighting Nazis, and now it’s the future and there’s still Nazis, even _more_ Nazis, and now they got even bigger and badder.”

“They’ve got better weapons now, anyway,” Steve said. “I’m not going to try to fight the entire world head-on—”

“I love it when you lie to me,” Sam said.

“Oh, fuck off. I’m not going to fight the entire world head-on because that wouldn’t _work_. It’s not just HYDRA, and it’s not just SHIELD. If HYDRA didn’t die when Schmidt did, or when Zola did—in the seventies, or last year, whichever—it’s not going to be stopped by something like SHIELD being dissolved. SHIELD, HYDRA—it all goes. I'm not exactly feeling a lot of sympathy for Nazis right now. And besides,” he said. “I _did_ do some research on the Patriot Act.”

Sam wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, talk about a precursor to Project INSIGHT, Jesus. And you’re sure you want to stay in—”

“Bieniec.”

“Yeah. That.”

“Well,” Steve said, “I know Natasha’s been keeping track of our locations, whether she’d admit it or not, and spending more time than usual in one place is going to ping her radar, so to speak.”

“Uh huh,” Sam said. “I miss her too, sure, but why do we need to—ping her radar, exactly?”

Steve said, “Because she’s the most likely person to have a direct link to Nick. And a direct link to Nick is something I’d really like to get my hands on sometime soon. I'm not too happy with the knowledge that SHIELD had been lying to the world for this long. Someone's got to accept responsibility for the way they treated—people.”

“You know, it’s kinda creepy when you do that whole tough guy schtick, cause you still look like an overenthusiastic waffle,” Sam said. “But like, a waffle with an SMG.”

Steve almost laughed. “You’ve got a real way with words, Sam.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna be the next Poet fucking Laureate,” Sam said. “God _damn_ it, Rogers, you just can’t make things easy, can you?”

Steve smiled. It wasn't funny, and he didn't know why he kept feeling those hysterical bubbles of laughter trying to fight their way out of his chest. He'd been experimented on, just like Bucky: so what? He'd been isolated in that cabin made for Bruce Banner, just like Bucky: so what? He'd been turned into a figurehead, a symbol, an oriflamme, just like Bucky: so _what?_

“No,” he said. "I really can't."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE [WHAT IS YOU DOIN](https://bit.ly/2HdzkbI) MEME IS FROM 2017. I FUCKED UP. PLEASE PRETEND TIME ISN'T REAL. THANKS!
> 
> Sources and references round-up can be found [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pBDOfZDeL7HyiRrvYYm8Ue0pe44g9kX8xBj4egtBq7A/edit?usp=sharing).
> 
> Aaaand that's a wrap! Thanks for sticking with this story all the way through. If it seems like an open/ambiguous ending, THAT'S BECAUSE IT IS! :D

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was born because I had a dream that there was a Ken Burns documentary on Captain America, and laughed myself silly upon waking up. (Then I was like, oh wait, I can make this hilarious and beautiful concept EXIST IN REAL LIFE, WITH MY OWN TWO HANDS AND MY BRAIN, and so I did.) This is, to put it simply, "Bucky exists ipso facto Steve will find him," the fic.


End file.
